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OHRadius vs. Shadowiii
OHRadius He he, I love this picture. :D
Fenrir-Lunaris
Download: 439 KB
V.S.
Shadowiii
Play Time: ~1 hours and -- minutes
Review # 32 for Shadowiii He he, I love this picture. :D
Them's Fightin' Words
    Ah, side scrolling space shooters. Super spiffy simulations of outer space shoot-em-ups. Ok, enough alliteration. OHRadius is a re-incarnation of your favorite space shooting and scrolling games from way back in the happy world of the SNES and Sega Genesis. The game features a lot of stuff pretty unique to the OHR: the sidescrolling, the shooting, the bosses, the scores, etc. However, the game has quite a few flaws and bugs for that matter (not just ones you shoot) which really put a damper on the overall effect of the game. However, for what it is (a start of a longer and potentially bug-free game), it is an execellent start. Especially considering it was made in under 528 hours.
Graphics
    The graphics are beautiful, what can I say? Fenrir is quite the graphics artist to say the least. The cutscenes in the game look really great, and are HILARIOUS to boot. The game's space-ship graphics also look very well done, especially for a small NPC spaceship. There is considerable shading in the various enemies (though they do tend to degrade as the game continues), but overall, a nice look. I love Cats flipping me off, though, he he he.

As stated above, NPCs are certainly above average, for the first half of the game at least. You start out fighting decent lookng bugs, then fight the mothership which...doesn't look so good. The NPC's tend to degenerate from there (though the toilets were pretty funny), and the quality seems to get worse and worse. Little flying fire orbs? Please. Black/gray rock...things? What? Yeah, the final levels could use a bit of touching up.

Tilemaps are purdy. I especially liked how you could fly behind the clouds and stuff. Though they generally were just there, they overall looked rather nice, and quite a few looked 3d and stuff. The style reminded me of that old Gensis side-scrolling space shooter that we all know and love (ZERO WING YOU MORONS. -_-;;). The flame tilemap was excellent too, and the final boss was...er...NOT DOWN OF UPSIDE?! DER ANIMATIONS OF MUCH GOODNESS IT WAS?! TJORD.

Overall, pretty, though a few things could be slightly improved upon, it was nice. It would have been neat to fly through a space city or something instead of just a bunch of rocks, but oh well.
 
Storyline
    Uh...what? The opening movie kinda has a story...wait no it doesn't. But it is hilarious. The ending is great too "What the HELL is wrong with you?!" - Thellos. But yeah, its a shooter, it isn't supossed to have a story. Though I did miss the dancing raison aliens that were at the end of Zero Wing. I guess Thellos is the subsitute, he he.
 
Gameplay
    It is all very original. That is good. We all already know that making a side-scrolling space shooter in the OHR is hard, so lets just ooh and aah Fenrir and his plotscripting for a while and then move on to the problems. This game has bugs. LOTS AND LOTS OF THEM. AND NOT JUST THE ONES YOU CAN KILL WITH RAID/BLUE LASER BOLTS EITHER. Fenrir luckily fixed a few that lingered in the beta release, but there still was quite a few remaining in this release as well.

First off, the opening movie seriously needs a suspend npc and suspend hero tag set on, because if you take a few minutes to read/laugh/cry at the intro, then you'll be covered in bugs and being sucked into the back of the side-scrolling engine when the game starts. A simple error, easy to fix, but really annoying.
The next thing is the laser issue. Fenrir did a spiffy job allowing you only three laser shots at a time. Sadly, the program seems to be retarded and think it NEEDS three lasers until onen falls of the other side of the screen, because when I shoot bugs, lasers tend to respawn in the upper right corner, sometimes even killing enemies I can't see. Well, fudge, its making the game easier, so I can't complain, it just looks weird when I'm blasting bugs/toilets/other crap and my lasers appear up there. Yeah, annoying.
Another bug I found was that the death-when-you-hit-a-wall script was a bit...oversensitive? I'd find myself slamming into walls I didn't know where there, dying spontaniously. And considering there isn't any save points (I'll talk about that in a second)...yeah. Frustrating.
Also, I don't know if this was intentional or not, but sometimes when NPC's try to leave the left side of the screen they turn around and come back. But only sometimes, with what appears to be random NPCs. I don't know why. -_-;;

Ok, save points. Thing is: THERE ARENT ANY. AT ALL. So when you die? Yeah, you start the game over. Think it is frustrating? Just wait. Combined with the fact that NPC's bounce back, making steering through chasms difficult, and it goes without saying that if you just TOUCH a wall you are a toasted SPAYS CHIP?!, well...it is very frustrating. I would have hoped to be able to save after every lever, or at least have "continues" or SOMETHING. But yeah, I found myself having to start over frequently (hence the hour playtime way up top there).
 
  Battle
    You shoot bugs. And toilats. Yeah, that's about it for battles. ^_^  
  Map Design
    Maps are actually pretty good until you get to that rock one where you are supossed to find a secret door or something, and I couldn't find it, so I DIED (argh!). That is a horrible part, I HATED it. The map name gave a hint, but it only stayed on screen for a second and it wasn't long enough for me to solve the puzzle, I guess, because I just died.

Other then that, all the other maps are great, actually. They require quite a bit of skill to navigate safely. Considering the only way to die is to crash into something, Fenrir did manage to make some pretty good maps that were challenging (unlike the first one, which was a pushover :P). Good work here, except that one annoying level...
 
  Balance
    As mentioned above, the lack of save points (as well as that one level that you didn't really know what to do) really threw me off. Not being able to reload was a real pain, and it really made me frustrated with the game fast.  
Music
    The music is very good. I couldn't pick up all the tunes, but I'm assuming a few were ripped, but it doesn't really matter, because they all SOUNDED good and I didnt' recognize the majority of them. The "Mars: Bringer of War" from the Planet Suite by Holst as the title theme was ingenious. The BAM rendition of this piece is excellent, it sounds all metallic and dark (kinda like FF6's Devil's Lab). It fits perfectly, and definatly sets the player up for the rest of the game.

All the rest of the songs are rather nice, actually, I liked them. Considerng they weren't RPG music, just BACKGROUND music, it was a neat experience. They all worked, so...yeah. No complaints. :)
 
Enjoyment
    I'd have had a ton more fun if I could have saved. Believe me. A ton more fun. Having to restart the game (which is buggy and a bit slow at first) every stinkin time I died was very frustrating. But heck, I got to see the opening movie that many more times, so YAHOO, I guess. He he...between the Arfenhouse the Movie 3 poster and the Cats flipping me off picture, I can't decide which I like better. ^_^ Overall, I had a decent time, and I'd bet most people who enjoyed Zero Wing or other such side-scrolling-space-shooters (say it five times fast now!) will have a decent time with it as well.
 
Final Blows
    Overall? I'd say it is worth a shot, at least just to see how good the engine is. However, the engine itself is going to need a bit more polishing before it will be complete. As I stated before, this game reminds me a lot of Metomorphosis. The engine is original, good looking, and decently programmed. Now someone needs to actually make a game with it. Worth a shot, but hopefully Fenrir will update it with more levels and make the game better polished. Recommended.
This game sould have a can of raid included for all the bloody bugs (programming and crawling :D).

This game sould have a can of raid included for all the bloody bugs (programming and crawling :D).
Final Scores
Graphics: 8/10.0
They are really nice, actually. I rather liked the tilemaps, they looked like something straight out of the Genesis era of games. The NPC's are decent (though the later enemy NPC's could use some improvement), the SPAYS CHIP looks really nice as well. Overall, great graphics, and I wouldn't expect any less from Fenrir.
Storyline: 1/10.0
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US (disregard)
Gameplay: 5.5/10.0
A bit too glitchy to be "fun", but still a neat experience overall. I tend to no longer play OHR games for fun (thats what the PS2 is for) but rather to see interesting things being done on the engines (like intersting gameplay, story, music, etc.). So, overall, an above average experience, though really glitchy at times (and slow! Argh! :P)
Music: 9/10.0
I really liked the music. A lot. Every song fit the level perfectly. The selection was a work of art, and I really liked all of it. Excellent work here!
Enjoyment: 4.5/10.0
It would have been funner if I could save. That basically broke this game for me. I was crusing along, having a good ol' time, and then I died and...had to start all over. Ugh. Other then that, excellent work here, and for begin made in such a short period of time, considerablly few bugs. Nice work.
Overall Grade: C
Final Thoughts
    ALL YOUR BUGS ARE BELONG TO US.  


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