Reseñas

• gamedeal user

  Apr 10, 2018

  [h1] The Metroidvania Review[/h1] [url=https://metroidvaniareview.com/2018/08/09/paradox-soul/] Scored Summary[/url] | | [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/30503887/] Subscribe to our Curator [/url] [b]How Metroidvania is it?[/b] Medium Fit - Weighty cover-based combat sets it apart from games more similar to the Genre's namesake, but exploration is still open and power-up based. [url= https://steamcommunity.com/groups/MetroidvaniaReview/discussions/1/1735465524721055084/] Want to hear a different opinion, or want to share your own review? Check out our Forum here.[/url] [h1]Full Review[/h1] I really enjoyed Paradox Soul. There's some solid game design at work here, and it was a fun taste of a Cover-Shooter/Metroidvania. This puts it in sort of the same category as Shadow Complex, though it mandates its duck and hide mechanics by making your avatar die in one hit. As you learn to play, the instant death gives it a kind of Hotline Miami or Titan Souls vibe, though it's not nearly as adrenalyn pumping as either of those titles. The pacing is much slower, which is fine when you're moving forward, but it makes backtracking kind of tedious. Because of this the game was at its best as I made my way to the bottom of the Laboratory complex, but as soon as I got there the game sort of lost its appeal. The game opens with your character walking into a test facility and... well it doesn't really tell you much about your goals until it's implied in the ending. You're left on your own to figure basically everything out, including every mechanic in the game. I kind of like this approach. It lends to a feeling of loneliness and discovery. This atmosphere could be improved upon though. While the graphics are very well done, with animations that perfectly compliment the gameplay, I found the music was a little grating after a while. It's a sort of "Stranger Things" style 80s synth beat, and while there are several tracks throughout the game they all have the same drone. I think it fits, I just didn't care for it. But what I did like was the gradually escalating challenges. Nothing really changes with your character's abilities in terms of combat. You get some gun upgrades, a bomb ability that's fun to time, but other than that it's going to be pop-in and pop-out shooting mechanics the whole way. The game does a good job at mixing enemy types together to create a sort of "puzzle" situation for you to solve, but it only has so many resources mix together. It just about runs out of ideas by the time you reach the final boss, and that would have been a perfect place to end the game. However in order to get the "True" ending you have to backtrack the entire lab to its entrance, and then you're only allowed to leave if you also found the two bombable walls - which are in fact cracked but hard to see - which contain two keycards for your exit. I can sort of understand why they did this - a lot of players equate time spent to value. But to me it cheapens what could have been a really tight experience even if it was a little short. Call it a nitpick if you like, the game does say "End" after you beat that boss; I could have quit just there. But to the game's credit it's good enough to leave me thirsty for more. I really like a lot of the game's level design. For instance, there was a collectable I didn't think I could reach with the Metroidvania tools I had already unlocked, but a situation that forced me to apply a move I already had in a new way taught me the power was within me the whole time. The three bosses are also a highlight. Because you die so easily, they're all very heavily telegraphed and satisfying to endure through. Overall, I'd say that if you lumped Paradox Soul in with every other Metroidvania, it sinks lower on the totem pole just because of its relative simplicity. But categorizing it with games like Dungeon of Zolthan, Mini-Ghost, or other budget games like the Legends of the Universe games, I think Paradox Soul is my favorite of these "Mini-Metroidvanias" that I've played so far. Its only real weakness is that I wish that more was done with it. 3 out of 5
• gamedeal user

  Sep 9, 2018

  Paradox Soul is a very short game that somehow still manages to be very repetitive because it throws the same scenarious and enemies at you over and over and over again. It tries to be a metroidvania for a little while then seems to give that up half way through. The map is the most necissary item you get in the game though you will be completely lost without it because everything looks so samey. The bosses aren't really difficult just annoying. And the one hit kill combat makes it very difficult to understand what is going on in the beggining and I wouldn't blame anyone that gave it up after 20 minutes of that. There is no real story/plot, characters, or world building or it's done so subtley as to barely exist at all except in the imaginations of it maker(s). Maybe get this if it's on sale and being one hit killed, having to check a map every room, and 80's BGM sound attached to a very short game sound attractive to you.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 5, 2018

  It has a nice artwork and a good mood, but this game was poorly made. Pro: - nice pixel art Con: - You can't change the controls. (I mean come on... How hard is do deliver a feature like this!?) - You are only able to complete the game if you find two hidden locations with no hints at all regarding what to do. I think it is practically impossible without a walkthrough. What were they thinking!? It is not hard, it is not complicated, it is not tricky, it just doesn't makes any sense!!! - If you change the sound settings they will reset at the next restart (also a complicated feature). - Story component = 0. The game is short (it's ok), but some explanation of the events would have been nice. Just a few lines. - I'm not a huge platform player, but I assume these levels are not chellenging for the lovers of the genre.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 17, 2018

  Good, short, puzzly. Not my best $5, but certainly not my worst. Fine pixel art, reasonable feel to weapons and movement, with only a few difficult movement puzzles. Worst part was that it told me to get out after a boss fight and the entrance was locked. Don't like to reward that kind of behavior, but overall positive experience.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 15, 2019

  Very short (less than two hours for the true ending), and poor controls. Since I like Metroidvanias I found it to be an OK game, but there are plenty of better ones out there...
• gamedeal user

  Jun 21, 2020

  I cannot recommend Paradox Soul although even if I did have fun trying to beat it as fast as I could. I beat the game in two hours and it was genuinely fun to explore the map. Unfortunately, the game play is really rinse and repeat throughout the whole game: duck and cover, shoot, and one enemy the player has to bomb. Only worth the two hours I took to beat and that is just because it was cheap and I wanted to review it. I would suggest you save your pennies rather than play Paradox Soul, but I did have fun with it so if you decide to try it anyways I also suggest allocating some time to be able to complete it in one sitting. The bosses were all super easy and nothing worth critiquing. The player dies in one hit and therefore the bosses could not be difficult without being horribly frustrating. Definitely do not buy Paradox Soul for boss fights because the element I did enjoy was the exploration and nothing to do with the gimmicky combat.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 17, 2018

  Didn't work
• gamedeal user

  Jan 18, 2020

  In the hellscape that is modern game industry, I believe the only reasonable thing to do - for both developers and gamers - is to take the unfamiliar step and go into the world of indie. Sometimes you can find truly amazing, life-changing experiences there. And sometimes you find games that are horrible misses. This is a horrible miss. It starts interesting enough, but quickly you realise you die in one hit, which makes you respawn at the beginning of the room. No biggie. You find a weapon. Cool! Enemies also die in one hit? Nope. That's alright though. They're melee and you're ranged, so you can just take them out from a distance. And then you find an enemy who also has a gun. At this point it's worth noting the game tells you NOTHING. Which is neat in its own way, it's cool to figure stuff out on your own. But every dev worth their salt know that in reality you have to design the circumstances which will nudge the player towards figuring it out, because not knowing what to do is frustrating. The enemy with a gun would fire his weapon before I'd kill him. What am I supposed to do? Oh wait, there are stairs. I came up with a solution: fire a few hits, go up the staris, go back, etc. That worked. Until I found an enemy with a weapon, and there were no stairs, just a door to another room. What now? I noticed there are some strange crates in front of the enemy. I thought, I can use them for cover? Nope, didn't work. I must be doing something wrong. I checked the controls and realised it says there that you can SLIDE (TO COVER). Oooh! So then I used the slide before the box, and voila, I'm in cover. Very unintuitive, but it was fun for a moment. Every other enemy was the same. Slide into cover, pew pew, hide, pew pew, etc. And then I got to the boss. There is a saying in indiedev community: "If you think the game's difficulty is just right, then it's way too hard. If you think it's too easy, then it's probably tricky: it should be way too easy for you." Many indie devs ignore this piece of wisdom, and I feel like this was the case here as well. The boss fight is too long, too complicated for no real reason. It just feels like it stretches out just because. I did beat the boss in the end, but it was an exercise in pure frustration. The repetitive, 5 second loop of music made it almost unbearable. Oh yeah, I didn't mention the music. It's bad, very, very bad. And it loops way too soon. It doesn't set the mood, it doesn't sound good, it never stops. Maybe it gets better later, but I didn't have the patience to check it out. I stopped playing after the boss. Dev(s), if you're reading this: I'm sorry. I know how hard it is to make a game. I liked your pixel art. But this is really, really bad work. I won't refund the game: keep my money and grow from this failure. If you have a bad taste after this game and want something similar but actually amazing, check out Hempuli's (of Baba is You fame) Environmental Station Alpha.