There was a very recent trend in the world of video games, which started in around 2015 and finally appears to be going away, for developers to make their product as infuriatingly difficult as possible. This deliberately increased challenge was then worn proudly as a badge of honour and used extensively in any marketing.
Newsflash: This is a crappy way to make games. Challenge is something that needs to be carefully balanced. A great game is neither too hard nor too easy; accessibility should be key at the beginning and challenge should increase as the game progresses. If your starting point is 'Brutal' it doesn't leave you anywhere to go, and that's just poor game making.
This is relevant to Bot Vice because it's a difficult game. A really difficult game. It features a very Super Nintendo aesthetic and is clearly aiming to recreate the level of challenge that we enjoyed in the mid-to-late nineties.
In terms of visuals, it’s bang on. The intro cinematic is oh-so Konami, the music is chip-tune perfection, and obviously the sprites are resplendent in their 16-bit glory.
In terms of how it plays though, I'm not sure it quite hits the mark. I mean, how many other games have you played where you died in the tutorial level?
The specific inspiration has to be Wild Guns; Natsume's fantastic (and fantastically expensive) shooting gallery game from 1994 (recently remastered as Wild Guns Reloaded).
These games share an idea that is, to all intents and purposes, an evolution of Space Invaders, insomuch as the player is locked to the bottom of the screen, has only side-to-side movement, and fires upwards from behind cover.
In the case of Botvice you have the addition of a dodge-roll with bonus invulnerability, the ability to lock on to enemies, and weapon power-ups in six or seven varieties.
The main reason I'm undecided on whether the game falls into the 'difficulty-porn' variety is that each level is only a minute long.
You have sixty seconds or so of frantic dodging, firing, power-uping, and cowering. Then the boss turns up.
Because of this, failing and retrying a level never feels insurmountable even when death is frequent. The enemies don't have rigid patterns but they do have specific 'behaviours' that can help the player to figure out the best way to take them on.
Obviously due to the challenge at hand you're not going to beat any of these level at the first attempt, meaning that you won't play through the game's 50 levels in 50 minutes. I would expect a dedicated player could polish it off in 5 or 6 hours though, so it's still a short game - albeit one with decent replayability, and is available for a very low price.
Newsflash: This is a crappy way to make games. Challenge is something that needs to be carefully balanced. A great game is neither too hard nor too easy; accessibility should be key at the beginning and challenge should increase as the game progresses. If your starting point is 'Brutal' it doesn't leave you anywhere to go, and that's just poor game making.
This is relevant to Bot Vice because it's a difficult game. A really difficult game. It features a very Super Nintendo aesthetic and is clearly aiming to recreate the level of challenge that we enjoyed in the mid-to-late nineties.
In terms of visuals, it’s bang on. The intro cinematic is oh-so Konami, the music is chip-tune perfection, and obviously the sprites are resplendent in their 16-bit glory.
In terms of how it plays though, I'm not sure it quite hits the mark. I mean, how many other games have you played where you died in the tutorial level?
The specific inspiration has to be Wild Guns; Natsume's fantastic (and fantastically expensive) shooting gallery game from 1994 (recently remastered as Wild Guns Reloaded).
These games share an idea that is, to all intents and purposes, an evolution of Space Invaders, insomuch as the player is locked to the bottom of the screen, has only side-to-side movement, and fires upwards from behind cover.
In the case of Botvice you have the addition of a dodge-roll with bonus invulnerability, the ability to lock on to enemies, and weapon power-ups in six or seven varieties.
The main reason I'm undecided on whether the game falls into the 'difficulty-porn' variety is that each level is only a minute long.
You have sixty seconds or so of frantic dodging, firing, power-uping, and cowering. Then the boss turns up.
Because of this, failing and retrying a level never feels insurmountable even when death is frequent. The enemies don't have rigid patterns but they do have specific 'behaviours' that can help the player to figure out the best way to take them on.
Obviously due to the challenge at hand you're not going to beat any of these level at the first attempt, meaning that you won't play through the game's 50 levels in 50 minutes. I would expect a dedicated player could polish it off in 5 or 6 hours though, so it's still a short game - albeit one with decent replayability, and is available for a very low price.
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