Stained (2014)

I'll come right out and say this game isn't for everyone. As of right now, reviews are mixed. Some of the main cons cited for this game are the poorly responsive controls, clumsy movement and combat, and uninteresting level design. I have to agree that the game suffers from all of these issues. For a platformer, these problems are the kiss of death. However, as far as platformers go, this one is rather easy and the poor controls and clumsy movement should not impede anyone too much. The level design isn't great; nothing is particularly challenging and puzzles can get boring quickly. It is not for you if you are looking for a challenging, highly polished, or well-designed platforming experience. It's also somewhat buggy. The game has crashed on me a few times, bosses have glitched out, achievements didn't unlock when they should, certain pickups didn't spawn, and keys have disappeared. Because of the low difficulty and short levels, however, it is not that big of a deal to simply restart the level, although once, I did somehow lose a few levels worth of progress after a crash. Ultimately, the bugginess is a minor nuisance and is easy to shrug off for the mere couple of hours it t…

https://youtu.be/FjckWHWmSK4 A glass based defense system that requires butt based activation leads to the obvious fall of the local kingdom. Death comes to kick glass and jump awkwardly. The heavy animation priority makes every action slow and clumsy while the AI struggles to be a challenge to the player.

This game just sucks. With the horrible controls I just can't waste time trying to play it. Then if you want to setup your own config on the controller you can't do it in game. You have to go into the files and change it. The combat sucks, jumping feels very stiff and the game looks pretty bad. Just not worth wasting any time on in my opinion.

Tags: Platformer Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library TLDR: The flow, pacing of movement and action is all sluggish. The tone and narrative are all butchered. Assets are recycled. Xbox pad detected correctly. Game looked okay-ish but thats about all it got right. Storyline does not match protag's sprite. I am supposed to be a disenfranchised king but I am playing as the grim reaper. The lore says the castle has stained glass monster attacking me but they only show up when I break the stained glass not when I try to invade which is backwards. Game has a lot of puzzles that involve guessing what the developper planned along with a lot of brute forcing by button mashing. Combat is very very floaty with yourself and the foes going through their animations in a hit and get hit affair. Slow controls make dodging difficult and the game is inconsistent in how it spawns foes sometimes allowing you to take one at a time while at other time swarming you with them. Walk animation, attack animations and jumping behavior does not feel like they were planned or designed for a sidescroll brawler or platformer. The animations are too drawn out. Assets get recycled quite a …

If you like dungeon crawling side-scrollers, enjoy tales about kings, queens, and all things medieval, or you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to play as the Grim Reaper in The Sims, you will love this game. Full review here: http://indiegamemag.com/stained-review-death-is-only-the-beginning/ (link is no longer functional)

The game's aesthetics are based on a great idea: an abandoned castle full of monsters made of shards of stained glass. The visuals look great. Unfortunately, Stained's gameplay is too excruciating to experience its beauty properly. Controls are unresponsive, and the player character moves so slow it feels like you are walking through thick jelly. Battles require some precise jumping and attacking, since every enemy has its week spot and attack patern, but the controls make seemingly trivial battles frustrating and unwinnable. I have struggled with the first boss for about fifteen minutes, then, when I finally killed it, the game crashed. I decided it was a sign from above and dropped it like a jagged piece of broken glass.