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[cooljeanius]

I'm still trying to finish up Henry Hatsworth, this is easier than that, right? Also, I'm trying to decide between Okamiden and this game, which of the two would you guys recommend?

 

[PBalfredo]

How have I not even heard of this game before today? This topic got me to head out to Target on a whim and pick up the game. Thanks for the tip about the sale, AwRy108. Put three hours into it so far, having fun.

The core mechanics work pretty well. The game balances melee and ranged well so that one doesn't completely make the other obsolete. Ellie's got an impressive number of moves and being able to use Chomp's special attacks simultaneously is pretty nasty. The game makes great use of the bottom screen. I was pretty surprised the first time

Spoiler

I saw an enemy jump into the bottom screen

On the negative side, I got to echo those who say this game is way too backtracking heavy. It wouldn't be such a problem if it wasn't for main flaw #2: no secret areas. If there were a number of secret areas I could uncover with my new powers while backtracking, it wouldn't be anywhere near as large a problem. And with the focus of item collecting for your pet, it seems like a very strange omission. Uncovering a trove of treats for my little monster would be more welcome than collecting the 26th missile expansion in a typical metroidvania. Such a missed opportunity.

That aside, the genre mash-up works really well and the game's a lot of fun. The game does a great job giving the player a steady stream of power-ups, weither it's from Ellie finding new items and abilities or Chomp leveling up and earning new forms and attacks. At least one is upgrading at any given time and it really adds to the sense of empowerment.

 

[jgkspsx]

I'm still trying to finish up Henry Hatsworth, this is easier than that, right? Also, I'm trying to decide between Okamiden and this game, which of the two would you guys recommend?

I don't think you can compare the two, but... Okamiden is by far the more "complete" game.

 

[CrunchyFrog]

Picked this up the other day. I have to agree with the general sentiment: the makings of a truly great metroidvania are there, the combat and RPG mechanics going together well, but the platforming/exploration isn't very refined. Having said that, however, this is one game I'd love to see them give another go at on the 3DS as a sequel could easily fix these problems.

About 30% so far, but damn thing is addicting. Sooooo much juggling

 

[jgkspsx]

I got Hatsworth on the strength of this. The level designs are much better. Hey, secrets!

Combat is similar, but doesn't feel as good. The puzzle mechanic is much more successful than Chomp, sad to say. But why the hell do they like locked room fights so much? Locked room fights nearly always suck.

 

[Cmagus]

Im about half way through this game I picked it up to fill the void while I wait for a new castlevania.I gotta say its a fun platformer but one thing that is ruining this entire game is the backtracking.It's so ridiculous it's literally gotten to the point where its running from one end of the map to the next and its becoming very difficult to stay interested.

Visually it looks nice, music is nice definitely a solid framework here but my god I just stopped playing when I completed an upgrade and see my next point is all the way in the other area.It's obviously aimed at a more younger audience but the easy difficulty doesn't make it any easier to backtrack

 

[jgkspsx]

I take back what I said about Hatsworth. It is cheap as hell from the Puzzle World on. I don't think I'm going to finish it.

 

[Square Triangle]

Just picked this up with the purchase of my 3DS. My god, this game is fun. Another rare gem that gets passed by because it's not published by Nintendo?

 

[Octorockin']

I've been putting off purchasing this game for a while, but I really do want to play it. : (

The artwork is, for the lack of a more original phrase, incredibly charming, and the gameplay mash-up sounds fun. I'll give it a go once I finish my small backlog. Also, here's a cool piece of fanart from nomarios.tumblr:

 

[jgkspsx]

I never weighed in on Hatsworth? (EDIT: oh, I see, I did.) My God, that game falls apart in the later levels. It's an incredible, miserable grind towards the end, and it's advisable presuming you've leveled up to just forget about killing enemies.

These guys (the developers) have a lot of good ideas, but they just lack the ability to edit and limit their vision. They also think that throwing crowds of enemies at you is a fair substitute for challenge. I'm not sorry I bought and played their games, but I sure hope they learned from the experience.

 

[Oneself]

I picked it up this week and I'm pleasantly surprised by what I played so far. I was "lttp" with Hatsworth earlier this year and remembered lately that they were working on something else on DS... so I searched about it on google, found the devs' website and well, the team seems dead (again) as they never updated their website ever since it was called "Project Monster".
Hopefully we'll hear from them again! =(

Anyways, I just woke this thread up to share how awesome this game is with other GAF members who, like me, might have missed it earlier this year.

If you're into Castlevania, Metroid and Mega Man among others, this game is a must.

 

[PumpkinPie]

I've been enjoying this game far more than any of the DS Castlevania games, it's so much fun.

 

[cooljeanius]

I got this game for Christmas. Will post thoughts later.

 

[Worthintendo]

I need to get around to finishing this game one of these days, I think I was stuck trying to level up one of Chomps final forms and just never got back to it. Amazing game though, maybe one of my favs from 2011 thinking about it.

 

[@MUWANdo]

This game was a big letdown for me. The graphics were pleasant enough, and the whole thing had a Wonder Boy in Monster World vibe that carried me through to the end, but man, the map design suuuuuuuuuuucks. Not a single secret or interesting landmark to be found the entire time, progress is very lazily gated, and even with the ridiculous amount of backtracking it's not a particularly long game. There's way more interesting stuff to see/do in the new Shantae release for DSiWare, and that's literally missing two-thirds of its planned content.

 

[cooljeanius]

I'm 50% in right now and I have 3 of the Kid Crowns. This game can be really addicting. Word of advice for people looking to get 100%. The max level for a monster form is LV30. Do not level up a form to LV30 until you unlock all branching form evolutions. If you level up the base form to max level before unlock its corresponding evolutions you are screwed from unlocking these new forms and new forms add to your total game percentage. So, no 100% unless you unlock every form.

OK, so this made me go back and re-read the manual about evolving Chomp. Turns out you have to give him items that the form he evolves into likes, not that the form he currently is likes. I had been playing with that misconception for the entire game up until now, so now I want to start over now that I know how it actually works. Also now that I know that combo-ing actually matters for money, too (still don't like combo-ing though)

My main criticism of the game would be the boring level-design and lack of secrets. It feels like Metroid 1 in that regard, just randomly placed platforms to jump on,but no real coherence. I love how much variety there is in the levels themselves (graphics-wise) but again, all the levels feel the dame due to the design.

Compared to games like SotN, Super Metroid or Shadow Complex, there is a distinct lack of secrets in the game. You have no reason to search the levels for stuff because there isn't anything to find except for a few useless gems here and there. In Metroid every block could potentially hold an upgrade, here there's nothing of the sort, all you do is grind enemies for gems and buy upgrades. Which brings us to the back tracking: seriously overdone. You need to traverse a big part of the map to go past an obstacle only to get an upgrade you can use back on the other side of the map! This happens several times. Without any secrets to find in the meantime, back tracking becomes very tedious.

I'd like to add onto this. It's not so much the backtracking in itself that I dislike, but it's the fact that the game tells you exactly where you need to backtrack to. Part of what makes other Metroid-likes fun for me is trying to remember exactly where you saw an obstacle that you could use your new item on, and then wandering around trying to find it. And then stumbling across secrets on your way back. But there's none of that here.

You can't help but see the similarities to Hatsworth. For instance, instead of a knight with a big sword that makes a big vertical slash, you get a lizard man with a big mace. Many of the same abilities that Henry had are used by Ellie, though I'll admit that she's got many more tricks up her sleeve than Henry already. The level design and enemies encourage a diverse usage of skills, too; I found myself using the same tricks in Hatsworth, not so here. You also get multipliers for hitting enemies in combos (I really don't mind this similarity at all, though).

Yeah, a lot of the enemies seem pretty copy-and-pasted in terms of behavior programming. Ellie also controls extremely similarly to Henry.

The puzzle mechanic [in Henry Hatsworth] is much more successful than Chomp, sad to say.

I agree with this.

 

[Rran]

Just started playing this game over the weekend (completely slipped under my radar upon release due to all the hustle & bustle over the 3DS release)--I'm really enjoying it! Sure there's a bit of backtracking, but the sprite animations are lovely, the music and design are fun, bright and popping, and the monster gimmick is actually pretty involving.

For anyone that's interested, the game's currently 10 bucks via Amazon!