BioMech

I was kind of enjoying this very retro metroidvania. Felt like a DOS game. Unfortunately it commits a sin that is one of my pet peeves; Unavoidable damage. The problem arises because enemies only fire their guns at you when you are within range. You are forced into this range multiple times, often resulting in being forced to take a bullet in the process. You can play through this problem, but it's annoying. There are plenty of other irks in the game as well. Sometimes the game doesn't recognise button inputs intuitively, like if you go to shoot then want to run to the left for instance, you won't move until you release the fire button and then depress and repress to go left. Weird things like that. Also, when I got the high jump upgrade, you'd think that would be pretty helpful right? Yes and No. It's cursed me into jumping higher which means now I bang my head against the ceiling of platforms that were previously trivial to get by. It's amateur rough edges like this that caused me to drop this game, a game I was only lukewarm enjoying at best in the first place.

Retro Metroidvania more on the Metroid side of things with combat and the way you backtrack. Very stripped down game with minimal to no objectives, just explore and figure it out. Game relies on unavoidable hits and insta-kill attacks from enemies to boost the difficulty of the game and the amount of backtracking you will have to do because of some cheap enemies unavoidable attack is just poor level design. The thing with backtracking is when you have to go back for story related stuff or once you get an upgrade it's fine, but having to backtrack repeatedly from taking unavoidable damage it's just irritating. And there's not much to to do in areas once you progress, there are hardly anything to collect or do in each area. So backtracking is just going through empty areas for the sake of traveling from one to the next, boring stuff.

BioMech, developed by ERMedia and published by Plug In Digital, is a 2D action-adventure game that immerses players in a meticulously crafted Metroidvania-style world. Released in 2019, the game offers a blend of exploration, combat, and character progression, combining the charm of retro-inspired pixel art with modern gameplay mechanics. It stands out for its tightly designed levels, rewarding exploration, and the way it integrates narrative into the environment, allowing players to uncover the story organically rather than through heavy-handed exposition. The game follows Tatiana Rocheva, a Russian soldier who, after being captured and subjected to brutal experimentation, receives cybernetic enhancements that grant her extraordinary abilities. Players take control of Tatiana as she navigates a secret research facility hidden deep within a Siberian forest, unraveling its dark secrets and confronting deadly threats. The narrative unfolds subtly, with environmental storytelling and sparse dialogue emphasizing immersion and allowing players to piece together the backstory at their own pace. This approach gives the game a haunting, atmospheric tone that reinforces the stakes of Tatia…

I almost hate to say that I enjoyed playing through this, but I really did. It's more of a Metroid clone than a Metroidvania, based on a comic and yet the game art is kinda terrible. Sometimes it looks like really good NES graphics and other times it looks like MS paint vomit. The music is surprisingly very good, and the game play ranges from super fun and intense to just plain unplayable. In the beginning you have basically no health and enemies will instakill the player over and over again. Much like in Metroid, you pick up mobility, weapons and health upgrades on the map by exploring. There aren't really a ton of secretly hidden things and if you access a device on the map you can see what items are remaining, making it even easier. Personally, I liked that because if I'm playing a janky Metroid clone I don't want to be puzzled on what to do next. Despite being based on a comic there's no dialogue and you're simply running through a base shooting down robots and progressing. Initially the combat seems impossible, but it makes more sense later on. You can duck down to shoot certain enemies and others have patterns that you can eventually figure out. The bosses also have somewh…

It is okay when it works. For me it glitched out completely to the point doing everything in the game was not enough to trigger any progress.

Biomech was another game that I picked up on a whim this month. It was part of a bundle. It sounded interesting and I like Metroidvanias. So how does it stack up? The TL:DR version: It's a D+ level product. The long version is that it has good ideas, just poorly implement. The story of Biomech is based upon the developer's webcomic of the same name. It is hidden online and you can read it if you wish. Regardless, a cyborg by the name Tatiana is sent to an abandoned facility to figure out what's going on there. Past that, there's no plot. Nothing to help you understand her or the history of the place. Gameplay, as noted, is very much a standard Metroidvania. It says on the box that backtracking isn't "a dirty word." It never ways. Tatiana fires out a gust of air (and later fire and then a stronger bolt) like Samus did in the original Metroid. The more powerful weapons have an ammo count, though I never ran out even with the most basic level. The developer seems to understand the concepts necessary / elements of what makes a good game in the genre. However, it frequently feels like they were checking off boxes: Power slide, an explosion (that's useless), a downward strike (that onl…