Reviews - ib4l

The artwork for this game looks great. Lady Exton is a lovely stylised character and the backdrops are lush. No complaints there.

The animation, on the otherhand, is minimal. Lady Extor just feels rather stiff, which is a terrible shame. There is no fluidity to player movement, and little to no visual feedback. This makes the controls feel unresponsive (they're not). NPCs don't animate when you attack them and will simply disappear when you dispatch them. In fact, NPCs don't react at all when you hit them - no sounds, no flashing, no path changes, nothing.

The music is functional, but somehow manages to sounds too dated, despite deliberately sounding like a homage to times past. The sounds effects are practically non-existent . I noticed two (there may be more) and they both sound like they were ripped out of the original Street Figther - they sound completely out of place compared to the fidelity of the music and completely at odds with the character of Lady Exton.

The game rules are inconsistent. In parts you can die by falling a small distance (when there is ground to fall to) while in others you can fall the full height of the level with no consequence. Dying again throws up a problem with player feedback - there is none. No sound, no animation, no warning. The game will simply flash up a message box mid whatever you were doing.

The game/level design is attrocious. There are resources to collect to keep some bars filled up (namely health and air) and, on many levels, playing at a normal pace will have you die of asphyxiation between air pickups. I found the best way to play was to run through the level as fast as I could - there was never any challenge in reaching these pickups, nor any concrete reason to slow down and enjoy the game.The level design I would describe as randomly throwing some platforms around an empty level and placing some enemies at any old location. You jump blind a lot.

The whole thing feels like a game of painting by numbers.