Monday 31 October 2011
Review: Innocent Luna Game
First of all, happy Halloween/Nightmare Night
everypony!
If you follow this
site, I’m sure you at least know of the Luna games. For those of you living under a rock, this
series of creepypasta platform titles has become a viral sensation for its
nightmare-inducing scares. Much like Luna
herself in the recent episode Luna
Eclipsed, fan developer Dialgabrite wanted to prove that a good game
featuring Luna doesn’t have to be terrifying with his project Innocent Luna Game. Was he able to do it? Let’s find out after the break.
The game’s plot makes it clear from the start that
this is a lighthearted romp. As Luna,
you’re thrust into different worlds where you must aid a diverse selection of characters,
from assisting Whale Wars’ Paul
Watson in taking down Japanese hunters to knocking sense into rogue Pokemon and
Digimon bent on dominating Equestria.
The game is divided into numerous chapters, each consisting of a
Sonic-esque act and a boss battle.
To advance, you jump around as in any typical
platformer, attacking enemies with lunar bolts and collecting… Yu-Gi-Oh
cards? Sure, let’s go with that. While these three things(collectibles,
precise jumps, and attacks) are all crucial parts of the platforming experience
that the developer has down, there are some issues to be found in this
aspect. First of all, your weapon only
shoots in one direction: forward and diagonally down. It would have been a lot simpler and more
efficient if these projectiles had gone just straight forward a la Mega
Man. And there are no power ups or
cumulative upgrades that allow you to make it stronger or change its
direction. Because of this, you must
resort to jumping in order to successfully damage most enemies.
We're whalers on the moon...
And that’s where the second problem comes in. Unlike games such as Super Mario Bros. where
the height of your jump is affected by how long you press down its respective
button, Luna’s rather high jump goes the same height regardless. This means that you’ll be moon jumping(no pun
intended) everywhere you go, which can be irritating when attempting to make
some jumps or avoiding enemy fire. This
is not the worst thing in the world, but it could definitely use
improvement.
Finally, the items you collect are practically
worthless, as you have unlimited lives.
That said, this as well as the save feature are useful considering the
lengthiness of this adventure. It took
me a good few hours to complete the game- something I can’t say for any other
pony game I’ve played yet. Sometimes the
formula is changed up a bit, but not always for the better. There are a few scrolling levels, a rail
shooter level, and levels in which you transform into another character. While I thought that last one sounded really
cool, these other characters(Nightmare Moon and Princess Celestia, to be
specific) do nothing unique. Their
attacks have the same size, power, and function as Luna’s, not to mention they
are slower than the protagonist. This
means the only thing that stands out about the two is a larger hurtbox-
something especially noticeable in the battle against Leomon. You must fight the boss while a barrage of
meteors come at you from the sky, with your only defense being a single
platform, which Celestia can barely fit under.
If Leomon is under the platform, receiving damage is practically
inescapable.
This is very hit or miss in the presentation
department. On the plus side, worlds are
colorful and Luna is animated very nicely.
The music selection is fun and eclectic, ranging from MLP remixes to
J-Rock. However, none of these assets
are original. The enemies are almost
entirely static images, and all the pony sprites are ripped from that batch
that everypony and their mother use (some are even in our current banner). That said, it’s clear that the developer was
very ambitious and had all the right intentions.
As such, I really want to go easy on this game. I love a good platformer, and the fandom has sorely
been lacking a traditional platformer of a sizeable length. Unfortunately, it has a number of
shortcomings I can’t ignore. With that,
I’ll give this game a:
If you do enjoy this and are interested in checking
out more of Dialgabrite’s stuff, which he’s set up Facebook pages for here:
- Sapphire Feather
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