devonrv

Wayforward is so odd; their games are almost okay, but always screw up something major. For example, I recently beat Cat Girl Without Salad (horizontal SHMUP): controls are responsive, graphics properly distinguish everything from each other, and bullet speed isn’t too crazy, but then every single enemy is a massive damage sponge. The default weapon deals so little damage that a crowd of enemies can amass on the right side, mill about for a while, then get bored and exit via the left side, all before you have a chance to kill a single enemy. Exacerbating the issue is the fact that half of the powerups only let you have a single projectile on screen at a time, a creative decision so bonkers and blatantly counterproductive, I’ve only ever seen it once before: in Mighty No. 9.

Even the powerups that do let you shoot more than once have their own drawbacks. For example, there’s one where you can only shoot four times before you have to collect your shots. That could work, but you also can’t aim; instead, your shots’ trajectory keeps rotating up and down, once again making it difficult to kill anything. Another powerup is short-range, having a sword appear in front of you. Again, that much I can work with, but it also locks your movement and pushes you forward quite a bit for each attack, making it unnecessarily difficult to avoid getting hit. You lose your powerup if you get hit, but honestly, it often feels like you’re better off with the default weapon.


Anyway, since I didn’t have much to say about that game, I decided to beat another one before making another post:

Pikmin clone (Action-RTS?). You can move and attack on your own, but there’s no dodge or block, even though attacking locks you into place until the attack animation is over. Ugh, even Pikmin 1 & 2 let you move and attack simultaneously! Instead, you’re expected to send your minions to attack enemies: lock on by holding L2, then hold R2 to make them charge at the enemy in single-file. You can also use the right stick to sweep them into enemies and objects, but unlike Pikmin 1 & 2, there’s no limit to how far away you can sweep them; in fact, every now and then, you’ll have to sweep them across an area you can’t get past yourself in order to hit a switch or something. You can choose to control only a certain color of minion by holding R1 and pushing a face button, but you go back to selecting all by releasing R1 before hitting a face button; I kinda wish there was a separate button for “select all” so that simply releasing R1 kept the one you have selected. I also didn’t like how, if you send out some (but not all) of your minions with R2, the right stick will only sweep those specific minions you sent out until you recall all of your minions with the B button; it’s meant to be used for having one minion carry a bomb somewhere, which isn’t uncommon, but it gets in the way quite often. That said, the strangest divergence from Pikmin that this game has is the fact that you can’t send minions back into reserve; if you call them out and hit the limit, you’re stuck with that team unless some get killed or you go back to your tower (which is its own hub area). EDIT: Nevermind, I figured it out: lock-on and hold R2 (the “send minion” button). It makes sense in retrospect, but it still could’ve used a prompt or something.

There isn’t much enemy variety besides your basic “charge at you and melee attack” and “stay still and shoot at you,” but it doesn’t take long for you to come across the main difference between this game and Pikmin: enemy spawners. Yes, despite the fact that most level design is just “here’s a mob of melee enemies” (balanced by the fact that your minions can take a few hits before dying despite not having a health bar, similar to The Wild at Heart), there are also buildings that can spawn more of said melee enemies. Some spawners can be destroyed, but unlike every other enemy, you can’t lock onto it to see its HP and how many minions are attacking it; plus, the only way to destroy the spawner is to break the door and send your minions inside the house, so it’s pretty unintuitive and can take a while for you to figure out. What makes them especially frustrating is that they can spawn enemies behind you, so you get attacked before you know they’re there. Heck, there’s even one part where the game has a flamethrower enemy appear behind you without any corresponding spawner! It’s just suddenly there, a deliberate attempt by the game to ambush you with a cheap hit. It’s possible to switch from front-view to overhead-view by pushing R3 (unless you’re locked onto an enemy, in which case R3 changes which enemy you’re locked on), but then you can’t see as far ahead of you (which is what the game is built around), so you can still get shot at from offscreen. This issue could’ve been fixed with a minimap/enemy radar, but the game doesn’t have one. Heck, it doesn’t even have a regular map (even Pikmin 1 has an unlockable map not far in the game!), so it can sometimes get a little confusing trying to figure out where you’ve been and where you haven’t.

There’s also a type of enemy that can revive other enemies. They only show up in one area (the forest) and once more outside that area as a reskin, but every time they do show up, they just make battles more attritious, especially when there’s more than one and they start reviving each other.

It’s not all bad, though. There are some parts with actual level design, like when there are enemies on a ledge you can’t reach throwing bombs at you, so you have to fight the regular enemies while also avoiding the bombs. You also have to use the bombs to break some doors down, and it can get a bit repetitive having to go back for yet another bomb. Some spots are guarded by fire archers, which you might think would mean you should use red minions (immune to fire, have projectile attack), but it turns out they’re not immune to this specific fire attack, so you have to use your own ranged magic to fight them if you want to avoid severe losses.

The desert area tries to add a couple new gimmicks, but doesn’t do much with them. There’s a sandworm enemy that’s immune to all your attacks, but it doesn’t take much to figure out you can kill it by luring the bomb beetles to it. After that, each sandworm encounter is the same; lure the bomb beetle and wait for it to be eaten by the sandworm, then do it again because that only takes half its health. At the end of the area, you’re supposed to use your minions to block paths in order to chase an NPC to a specific spot, but what you’re not told is that your minions can only block the narrow paths; even if you have enough to block the longer path, the NPC can just run though them. This is also the only time in the game you have to do anything like this.

Next, you have to fight airborne enemy spawners, and this is where problems with minion movement become starkly apparent. In Pikmin (and even The Wild at Heart once you got the fourth minion type), you could just throw your minions onto the airborne enemy to attack. Here, you can only hold the charge button and hope their pathfinding has them jump at the enemy instead of run down the slope below them, where they’ll get killed by the spawner’s jet exhaust. This is on top of the fact that only green minions actually have a chance at jumping to attack instead of running to their deaths (which can still happen). I tried having my red minions attack them, but I kept hearing the audio cue indicating fire won’t hurt them, but the same spanwers in the next area (with the mace-wielding boss) were entirely vulnerable to fire, so I don’t know what to tell you.

Speaking of the mace-wielding boss, it’s a damage sponge, even compared to the other bosses. It’s entirely immune to fire minions (the only ranged minion type you have) and there’s very little time for your other minions to attack the boss unless you leave them in the line of fire. It’s not hard for you to avoid the boss’s attacks and attack it yourself, but you won’t be doing much damage (and if you get hit even once, that’s half your health gone), so the battle is pretty slow and repetitive. The game does give you the ability to upgrade your equipment, but it costs a lot of minions just for marginal changes, so that won’t help much, either.

The final boss also has issues. The first phase has you alone fighting off a bunch of other enemies, so you pretty much need to have enough health upgrades to endure their attacks enough to defeat them. After this is another regular level segment where you just have your minions bring stuff back to base; only difference is that enemies come from the ground so you can’t kill their spawner (and they respawn every time you get near their spawn point). After this is the final boss’s second phase, which isn’t much different from the first (due to the continuous enemy spawnings); only change is that you have your minions, and the boss’s shield can only be pierced by minions of that color. The boss can also turn into a tornado and fly around the arena, and while it can be kinda cheap at first, its not too hard to dodge once you learn its path. Also, despite regular autosaving during this part, your health won’t be restored to full on retry unless you choose to return to the tower and immediately go back (you don’t lose any progress by doing this).

Overall, I don’t think I’d recommend this game. Not only does it poorly copy the core mechanics of Pikmin, but pretty much the only way it can think to challenge your minion swarm is by having the enemies swarm you back.

Fallen Kal

That said, the strangest divergence from Pikmin that this game has is the fact that you can’t send minions back into reserve; if you call them out and hit the limit, you’re stuck with that team unless some get killed or you go back to your tower (which is its own hub area).

You can most definitely and easily send minions back down their spawning pits. Only if you’re unable to find a spawning pit for the type of minion you want to return is it a slight hassle.

Yes, despite the fact that most level design is just “here’s a mob of melee enemies”

I strongly disagree with this statement, most level design requires you to think how to use the environment and the type of minions to best defeat the current situation. In many ways the combat is more like a puzzle (for the bigger, more important areas), there are of course some simpler areas with just fighting.

Some spawners can be destroyed

Nearly all enemy spawners can be destroyed or stopped in some kind of way. Though I do agree it’s not very intuitive to figure out at first.

Here, you can only hold the charge button and hope their pathfinding has them jump at the enemy instead of run down the slope below them, where they’ll get killed by the spawner’s jet exhaust.

You can make the green minions (the ones that can jump on flying enemies) stay in one location (they will automatically cloak so other enemies won’t kill them) and they’ll automatically jump up and attack the flying enemy once it’s in range. Sweeping them over also kinda works but you’re correct that the pathfinding isn’t great in that situation.

Overlord is one of my favorite games though it certainly is far from perfect and certainly has it flaws. The only thing that really bother me was sweeping the minions with the mouse, which was really awkward and getting them to go where I wanted was annoying. Seems like you didn’t really fully grasped the mechanics of the game or the way it’s enemies work. I completely agree that it’s a flawed game and not all mechanics work as good as they could but I would still recommend it despite these flaws.

devonrv

You can most definitely and easily send minions back down their spawning pits.

Wow, really? How? Serious question. I tried locking-on and pushing different buttons, even holding down on the left stick while locked-on and pushing different buttons, but nothing worked and the game never told me how. I even tried looking it up just now and can’t find it, only how to get active minions to follow you again.

EDIT: Nevermind, I figured it out: lock-on and hold RT (the “send minion” button). It makes sense in retrospect, but it still could’ve used a prompt or something.

most level design requires you to think how to use the environment and the type of minions to best defeat the current situation.

requires you to think

Let’s see, there’s an object surrounded by water, and the blue minions are the only ones who can go through water…hmm…gosh, I’m stumped.

Seems like you didn’t really fully grasped [sic] the mechanics of the game or the way it’s enemies work.

Not much to grasp when most of the enemies do nothing besides chase you and melee attack. Not much to grasp when you can swarm most enemies with brown minions to kill them in one second with zero casualties (some enemies, like the zombies or the dark minions, don’t even need to be lured away from the group first).

But let’s talk about that level design for a bit. Water? Swarm with blue minions instead; kill them in 2-3 seconds, revive the one or two minions that die (if that). Unstoppable spawner? Just beeline for the boss/miniboss and swarm that one instead (works every time with minimal casualties, if any). You could try leaving some red minions on the nearby ledge, but even if they didn’t always miss moving targets, the majority of the enemies in the bigger, more important areas inevitably end up out of their range due to how big and important the areas are. Bombs only work when they’re available and when the enemies won’t/can’t chase your minion, escaping the bomb by proxy (unless you wait for the timer to tick down enough, but by then it’d be faster just to swarm the enemies and leave the bomb alone). For real, the only time bombs are useful against enemies besides their-introduction-in-the-forest-with-the-groups-of-reviving-enemies is in the crumbling castle with the two flamethrowers. The most I had to think was against the rarely-used flamethrowers who weren’t near bombs, and that was just “distract with red, circle around, swarm with brown.”

That’s my main problem with these types of games: sure, there’s a bunch of things you can do, but there’s no need to grasp all the mechanics when the dearth of enemy variety (reskins don’t count) and level design means you’re better off just doing the same thing over again since that’s what keeps working. Then, in those rare instances where something else is required, it’s more like a one-off riddle in an Adventure game than a proper build-up of the mechanics since it’s something you never had to do before and something you’ll never have to do again.


I will admit, I’m starting to think I’m just not a fan of Pikmin clones (or at least not as big a fan as I once was). Have you played any of the actual Pikmin games, or other clones like The Wild At Heart (still on Game Pass) or Little King’s Story? If so, what’d you think of them?

Fallen Kal

Let’s see, there’s an object surrounded by water, and the blue minions are the only ones who can go through water…hmm…gosh, I’m stumped.
Not much to grasp when most of the enemies do nothing besides chase you and melee attack. Not much to grasp when you can swarm most enemies with brown minions to kill them in one second with zero casualties (some enemies, like the zombies or the dark minions, don’t even need to be lured away from the group first).

Well I didn’t say they were overly complicated puzzles, and a lot can be brute forced, but most areas have an optimal way of solving them and enemies an optimal way of killing them. While you certainly can just send wave after wave of minions against enemies, most do have a better way to kill them, not all enemies are the same. I guess the fun for me was figuring out the correct way of solving it. I can certainly understand the game is more boring if you don’t :D

I’ve actually bought and played this game when it came out, and later replayed the Steam versions. But I won’t argue that the game isn’t a flawed gem, the mechanics aren’t worked out as well as they could, and no matter how well I know the game it never stops feeling kinda clunky and rough.

I have never played Pikmin or any of it’s clones (apart from this game and it’s sequels), so honestly I can’t compare. You have made me more interested in Pikmin with your review now, it just always seemed a bit too childish (no offense to you). But I do agree with you that there’s much room for improvement in this game and it’s mechanics.

devonrv

not all enemies are the same.

Is there any functional difference between the halflings and the yellow beetles and the zombies and the Red Dawn and the dwarves and the dodo birds and the black-clad assassins? Even the sheep act the same before you kill one and they start running away. I know the dwarves get more powerful when they drink beer, but that wears off after 5 seconds, and as far as I can tell, that’s the only difference. You keep saying that they’re not the same, but the only ones I can think of that are different only show up a few times, often all in the same place and then never again (the succubae, the rock armadillos, the elf guards, the sandworms and bomb beetles). Can you give me an example of what I’m missing?

Pikmin…just always seemed a bit too childish

If it makes you feel better, the first game is about being stranded on a planet so deadly that even the atmosphere is poisonous, and you have to repair your ship before you run out of air and suffocate to death. ☺

Fallen Kal

Forgot to reply :D

It’s been a long time since I played the game so I don’t remember the details well, and yes there’s not a huge variety of different enemies but I do remember various enemies requiring different tactics to take down (e.g. the bigger enemies required different tactics, the unicorns did a charge, the slugs did a poison attack, …). Admittedly these tactics are still very basic, the game just isn’t very complex, but the enemies aren’t simple cannon fodder either.

I know very little about Pikmin, don’t get me wrong it could be an amazing game, that was just my first impression about it when it launched.