Great game.
Don't let the asshole below me discourage you from making more.
Reviews for "Hero's Arms"
Accident Waiting to Happen....
Berzerk tried their hand at a true-to-form retro game. Hero's Arms might take you back, but it is horribly irreverent to its source material. Ironically, true to the era, this game IS strangely addictive and enthralling, in line for a franchise with surprisingly smooth play. It even one-ups most Flash games of this era. Now, how cool is that?
Lukewarm.
Most bugs and complaints in Hero's Arms are blamed squarely on deliberate, campy flaws that play charades with the essence of a truly rough-hewn '80s classic.
#1: hitTest bugs
Enemy movement, moths and magipigs in particular, do not flow with the landscape. Moths don't fly over lava (well, understandably since heat rises) and escape through doors fly through walls. Magipigs teleport straight into walls, and then their fireballs pass right through. Also, the portal program fails to take proper boundaries into account. Even old school games had enemy behavior better than this. The only hitTest bug here is that there isn't aren't enough PROPER hitTests!
#2: Lack of Variety
The trouble in conceptualizing items and their functions is that programmers get lazy. Instead of manufacturing new item types for the second half of the game, the designers simply re-hashed old versions of said weaponry into more powerful incarnations, even going so far as not bothering to replace the old objects (as old school games would). Either I fail to "get the joke" or the designers were exceptionally lazy. I bid toward the latter (never, ever assume your audience is stupid).
That leads to the second part of this complaint and, incidentally, it deals with the "Second Quest" phenomenon: it plays out exactly like the first one, only with harder opponents and newer versions of antiquated weaponry, but you NEVER BOTHER TO REPLACE THE OLD STUFF.
The bestiary faces a similar dilemma. Developers made a progression of foes who are merely harder-hitting re-hashes, making this game into a monotonous hack-and-slash routine. No matter how immersed a player becomes, it's all for naught if they do not bother to recall the arduous leveling-up process.
Another issue is the soundtrack. NEVER make a repetitive soundtrack! Most soundtracks in the '80s were unusually complex and even catchy because musicians dealt with limited sound-fonts. They compensated with complex music theory. Fortunately, music can be turned off.
Truly epic, memorable games anticipate tedium and create caps on levels or intricate tasks to retrieve treasures for survival. The original Legend of Zelda had a second quest, three times as difficult since instances of items and adversaries were skewed. You're forced to fight with fewer items and must think on your feet to survive.
#3: Utterly Cheesy
Clearly, someone decided to hammer at the holes of yesteryear games but forgot the nails to pound with. The humor is miss-and-miss. It's supposed to spoof retro '80s adventure games. You'd think fish in a barrel is easier to shoot.
I didn't even know a village existed until playing the second half of the game and getting stuck. The lack of interaction or information regarding the game world--beyond homicidal bad guys rushing you--is not funny, but frustrating. On the other hand, NOT finding the first metal armor at the village shop made me into a trained killer and master escape artist. It happens after running around naked and brandishing a fucking STICK....
Speech text from villagers made me puke. In-Game cinemas made me gag in their goofy homoerotic depravity. It was so kiddy-kiddy that it detracted from my incentive to beat the game. They even described a new weapon as 'bad-ass'. Honestly, when does the hurting stop?
Nobody deliberately translated games to be funny. Localization companies used to change things around liberally. They would "dumb down" games to appeal to younger audiences. This was true for NES games. The difference here is that I'm sure the guys behind this one DO speak English AND understand western culture. No excuses!
Worst Complaint:
The 'best' items are exclusive to Kongregate.
Love it
Great animation and gameplay, sweet music, many cool monsters too beat up and so much too explore. As many others has said, this really feels like a good old Super nintendo/Nintendo game.
But i do get a bit cranky whene i see the hole "Can only be found on Kongregate"
But thats a thing i have to live with. Cheers
Awesome
This game is great. Good graphics and good music very well put together.
There is one thing i dont like: You cannot buy some gear because its 'exclusive' to Kongregate.......I came to play this game on Newgrounds not Kongregate. GRR.
fun
good game, kinda buggy, mobs can move through walls sometimes. reminded me of old NES zelda!