LarsGadiel

As a retro gamer, coming across LarsGadiel which gave some NES vibes with the visuals got me curious about giving it a try. The story is simple and easy to understand, the focus of the game focusing on the exploration and platforming while you have some NPCs which don't increase the story levels much but give the whole setting and world a nice vibe. And that's fine like that. Graphics and tunes are very related to the NES era, giving comfy and enjoyable vibes for anyone who enjoys retro games in general. Gameplay-wise, you can level up your weapons which get stronger over time, being your main source of damage throughout the entire game. You'll find your upgrades and chests here and there, some hidden and some in the open, your typical metroidvania. The world map, your items, exp, everything being on the main screen so it's easy to keep an overview of everything. Getting lost didn't happen much as the world isn't the biggest so your options where to go through can be counted on one hand once you got something new to progress. Difficulty-wise, it goes from moderate to some screens which require you to be a bit more skillful in your platforming. There is instant death from spikes, lava, and other objects so you may or may not need some attempts to get through certain areas and screens at times. Enemies and bosses are on the simpler end with patterns so it wasn't too hard to figure out how to approach them once you saw what they do. And if you feel you lack damage, you can go for a short exp grind session as it doesn't take too long to level up your weapons in my opinion. On my end, I enjoy me games in the 20-30h range to be done with them, LarsGadiel being a very short game when looking at my playtime to get 100% achievements. Beaten in 3.4h, and getting anything what was left with another 3.4h. The game is more for the people who may not have the most time and want to beat a game within short time spent, but the game was a bit too short for me, going in with that expectation that NES games tend to be like that. I really felt like a few screens in their designs were made, to bluntly say, the go the "haha, eat ***, idiot" path. Narrow corridors with ranged enemies where it was hard to almost impossible to get through without taking damage, instant death spikes left and right from a ladder where you have to jump in and easily just go back to your last save point, little things like that feeling less put in there for the sake of difficulty but rather as a mean way to annoy you on purpose. These mostly showed up in the very late game and less before I beat the game once. A possible solution for that would've been to have maybe one more save spot in each area as there were cases where backtracking was taking a bit at times. That enemies move while screen transitions happen sometimes resulted in them either jumping right onto you and taking damage guaranteed or them shooting at you already while you can't move. Would've been better if enemies would start to move once you can move again as well. Tech-wise, only noticed that the moving spikes rarely got stuck within their movement cycle, money spawning in the ceiling and not being obtainable after killing an enemy, and one screen got me into a softlock which may get fixed with coming updates. Anything else felt fine on my end. It was a short trip through LarsGadiel, but was still overall fun to experience.

Played from start to end on a Retroid Pocket Flip 2 (Snapdragon 865) via GameNative. I want to start saying that this game is one of the lightest, easiest to run I have tried to run with an Android Windows emulator. It's so light, that I was able to play it full speed through GameNative installed on an Anbernic RG DS (a device so weak that it can hardly emulate the handheld console it's supposed to imitate), and the only reason I didn't keep playing on it was because of the lack of 4:3 aspect ratio support. So, on behalf on other that would like to play this game on their other Android devices with 4:3 screens (like Retroid Pocket Nova, RG477M and V, Ayaneo Pocket Air Mini...etc), I'd say it would be nice to have an option to switch the UI style so that the actual gameplay screen fill the entirety of a 4:3 screen without that huge side bar taking a significant part of the screen. I don't even mind if the mini map had to be removed for that, I didn't feel like it was necessary to have on screen all the time. That would be a nice improvement for a game that play so nicely on devices other than modern computers with widescreens. So like I said, played from start to finish on my Retroid Pocket Flip 2, in about 10 hours to 100% the first map and get the true ending. Currently going through the post-game content, but I think I have played for long enough to give an opinion. Great game, play very well, pretty responsive and feels good. Difficulty wise it has two distincts side: combat and platforming. Combat is easy, even the bosses did not cause much troubles to me, only the final boss actually made me retry a few times. Then there is the platforming. This felt insanely hard as someone who's not very used to that in metroidvanias. I did not play many games of that genre, but I'm a big fan of Metroid and Castlevania. And there it's usually the other way around: Combat, especially boss fights, can be quite hard, while the platforming is easy and streamlined. Here, we have: Insta-death spikes and lava pits, traps and small platform that require precision and sometimes correct timing, as well as enemies with random pathfinding mixed in. Thanks goodness the traps and enemies damage doesn't knock you back from where you are standing, because that would have been hell. I've had hundred of deaths before reaching the final boss just because of that, and the post-game area I'm going through now is even more insane than the rest of the game. But you know what? That actually didn't deter me from trying again and again until I managed to pass. Because that didn't feel impossible or completely unfair. I'd imagine someone who's used to hard 2D platformers would have a much easier time here than I did. Like I said above, the game feels good to play, I like that there's many upgrades hidden away that makes exploration much easier by the end to grab all the missed hidden chests. I like that there is no consequences for dying other that a special requirement for the true ending. I can die right after grabbing a chest in a hard platforming section and not worry about having to do it all over again, I really like that. There's also a bit of exploits in the game, I don't know if that's intentional. Damage boosting for example is something I used quite a few time to help me go through some hard platforming sequences. Even the simple action of taking damage from a trap in order to jump higher than normal, I don't think it allowed me to sequence break anything as most of what I managed to get that way were simple life/ammo upgrade or currency, nothing important to progression, but it did help me survive in lava or spikes long enough to get out of if before dying. The game has a good amount of content for the price, I think it's good value for fans of the Metroidvania genre. TL;DR: Game's good, plenty of challenge, about 10 hours worth of content with new game plus, play very well in Winlator/GameNative on weak Android handhelds (RK3568 minimum…

A fun bite-sized Metroidvania. I was super annoyed at first by the precision platforming segments, but they are actually pretty limited and don't overstay their welcome, also, the game later gives you items to defeat or circumvent the 1HKO traps. I would love to see this author make a full-length (20+ hour) game in the same genre. Sprites are cute, game is fun, exploration is rewarded. I would say the heaviest influence is Cave Story but it does have it's own groove. All the elements of a good Metroidvania are here, would just like a longer, grindier experience for that true SotN feel. That's a dragon worth chasing.