Them's Fightin'
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Neké was created for a week long contest a while ago. Despite a week being a fairly short development time, Neké still manages to be more enjoyable than most games with 10 times the development time. The game doesn't have the best graphics, it doesn't have the best gameplay, but there's an undenyable charm lying in the presentation that cannot be mistaken. The game is actually fun to play, even while you're just sitting through the cutscenes, you can't help but admire the polish that went into it.
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Graphics |
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Wow. The graphics look great. The walkabouts are interesting and fun to walk around. The battle graphics are detailed. The map tiles are great looking. And nothing looks boring. Neké does a great job in keeping the map tiles varied, so you never get tired of looking at the same tile. Another thing that must be noted is the incredible amount of character animations. There are so many different frames drawn for Neké alone, so the cutscenes are always interesting because of it.
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Storyline |
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Neké is taking a little dip in her hot tub on top of her villa. Her phone rings, and on the other end is a voice she hasn't heard before. It babbles about wanting to kill her and then a bomb goes off. Neké jumps off her roof in the nick of time and lands safely. From here, she goes on a journey to find the person who wants her killed. While the plot is eventually thrown out the window in preference of comedy, the story line does exactly what it should; encourage the player to keep playing. I was interested until the end.
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Gameplay |
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This section it hard to judge. Everything was telling me that this game had bad gameplay, yet I still enjoyed it. So I'll grade honestly in the gameplay catagory and leave the redeement for the enjoyment catagory. Basically, the game was a movie where you do all the work. You go to a city, watch a cutscene, go somewhere else, watch a cutscene, go somewhere else... And somewhere in the middle of it all, there are battles. I guess you can say the whole game revolves around the plot.
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Battle |
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The battles were easy. Enemies do 1 damage each and you can kill each enemy in the game in about 2 hits (yes, including the boss). Luckily, there are probably only about 4 battles in the whole game, and only one of those you can't run from. It's obvious that this isn't a game you're meant to die in, but it would be more enjoyable if there were just no battles at all.
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Map Design |
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Each map was unique. There's a small overworld with several different locations on it. You can go to the museum, the studio, the town, the twin towers or the buisness office. Each of these locations are distiguishable from one another, so it doesn't feel like you've been there before. There are some locations, such as the bridge between the twin towers, the look very nice and different from most of the maps you've seen in OHR games.
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Balance |
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As said in the battle section, the battles are worthless. They're entirely too easy and don't really help the plot. That said, they're not terrible. At least you don't have to hit each enemy 10 times. And the battle frequency was just about perfect. You never feel like the enemies never stop.
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Music |
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I can't play BAMs. I'm working on it. Stupid VDMSound...
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Enjoyment |
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This game amazed me. I have no idea how I could have such a good time without great gameplay. It held my interest the whole way through and that's too much to say for almost all the OHR games out there. Give Neké a quick look for how games should be presented to the player.
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Final Blows |
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What hasn't been said? This is one game that is greater than this sum of it's parts. I had a good time all the way through and wouldn't mind playing through it again. I highly reccomend Neké: Woman of Mystery to all and everyone.
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