The Ploshers

[quote]A review copy was provided by the developer.[/quote] [quote]Follow my Curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41363546-Fruit-N-Doggie-Reviews/]Fruit N Doggie Reviews,[/url] so you can be updated whenever I post a new review.[/quote] [h1]Overall Rating - Painfully Bad ★☆☆☆☆[/h1] [h1]First Impressions[/h1] I'm not sure why, but the developers of The Ploshers (TP) reached out to me out of the blue, offering me a copy of the game. Unfortunately, I got distracted, as is my norm, and beat all the stages a year earlier before posting the review. I'll admit there are elements I enjoy and think are good ideas, but it doesn't mesh together well. Between the visuals, gameplay, and even difficulty, it reminds me of an NES game. Too bad it has some of that era's jank to go along with it. Also, some people gave good reviews after beating only two stages, so take their reviews with a grain of salt. [h1]Gameplay [/h1] TP plays similarly to NES arcade games, as you'll load up stages that slowly fill up with enemies, and have to destroy five each of all four colors to beat the level. In theory that's only 20 enemies to contend with, but the game spawns enemies randomly, …

[h1]Details[/h1] [quote] [h1]The alt-timeline 1989 Atari ST cult-smash finally on Steam![/h1] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1699992096 [b]Hook[/b] Complete successive platformer screens, using colour pellets to blast the ever-expanding diversity of foes. [b]Mechanic[/b] Each screen has a set of platforms. - platforms can be jumped between. - platforms fills with beasties, which you can blast with corresponding-colour pellets. - if any given platform level gets too populated, you die. - pratcially everything in this game kills on-touching - so this game is very unforgiving. [b]Universe[/b] Graphically, it is a simple and naive world. The world has about as much coherence as Jet Set Willy and feels like an Atari ST coverdisk. [b]Delivery[/b] A quirky style holds a solid platform arcade experience. The levels are tough and progression extremely hard - seemingly like games of old, to prolong shelf-life. No sugar-coating, a decent arcade experience for old-skool fans. [/quote] [h1]Summary[/h1] [quote] [h1]An unabashed slice of retro-arcade platforming goodness. Looks childlike, but plays like a sulky teenage witch with a grudge: you will be exasperated b…

+2 Local Co-op

I was given the beta key to try out before its public release. It's certainly the first game released by the developer, as it is an arcade game with pretty simple cartoon graphics and retro 8-bit sounds. The goal is to clear every stage by shooting down enemies with corresponding colors of your bullets (as this game seems to be made for game controllers, the buttons on my XBox controller matches with them). With progress made with each stage, new enemies are introduced and the levels are built with more complexity, adding to the challenge. The negative points with The Ploshers at its current stage is that you don't have any other abilities than just spamming bullets on bullet sponges of your enemies, so any extra abilities or power-ups would make the shooting a bit more satisfying. Some extra effects would make a better impact that you've endured maneuvering and shooting down the enemy monsters. I also think some sound effects could have been toned down a bit while still sounding punchy in the 8-bit way; it's grating to the ears when an enemy fires a laser at every turn. In the end, the simplicity of the arcade game works to the strength of monster diversity along with the star …

gamesense

7.5/10