Arborescence's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[everything else]

Cool game. Fast paced, appropriately hard, lightly-slanted learning curve. Enjoyed it.

A minor complaint. Why is it that many games here set the directional inputs to arrows instead of the more common WASD?

StuffedWombat responds:

thanks!
its because we are making games for an international audience and (for example) french keyboards do not have a WASD friendly layout!

So since we do not code keyrebinding for smaller games, we just stick to the keys that every keyboard all over the world has!

[Santa shooter]

I don't seem to need a long digression to express my dislike towards this game. It is just carries within it no source of interest.

eario5 responds:

Exacly! That was my evil plan so I can upload my other projects that I made that are even better so u guys think that I grew from this shit to an awesome devloper in no time!

[Newgrounds Rumble]

I have constantly argued in favor of games not being mere entertainment. When they are really good, they are pieces of art and this is by far one of the best games on Newgrounds.

Regardless of the Flash programming, Newgrounds Rumble enjoys one of the fastest-responding controls I have ever seen around this website. Despite its apparent simplicity, with a little practice, one is able to combine the quickly triggered combos into longer sequences which is virtually impossible in games such as The Perfect Fighter which have more "sophisticated" and therefore more cucumbersome controls. The ability to chop combos up (that is, to be able to stop a 3-hit combo in its second hit, for example) gives the player the ability to connect several small combo pieces into longer sequences. One of my very favorites is to do a 2-hit crouch normal attack and the complete crouch-fierce combo finishing it up with a 3-hit air fierce attack with Nene. A massive combo made possible only by the sensitive and fast-responding controls of this game. There's only one thing that bothers me regarding the controls of this game. The tutorial section fails to mention that whenever the player presses any attack button immediately after defending, a crouch attack is triggered. A trick one learns only through playing.

The characters are indeed very well-balanced in Story Mode and the stories presented in the beginning of each fight give them a very special flavour. But in Versus we have a completely different scenario. Salad Fingers, Piconjo, Alloy and Hank are permanent underdogs in battles which contain the likes of Pico, Nene, Alien Hominid and Fancy Pants. I managed to get a flawless victory in OMFG difficulty with Nene and a 710 damage dealt mark with Alien Hominid but I can barely get a single kill with Salad Fingers or a large combo with Convict. I recognize the reality that some people might be able to play these aforementioned characters with marvellous ease and dexterity but I find them facing greater difficulties on Versus mode from the get go.

Also, profiles often omit a few of the more interesting aspects of each fighter. Examples are: Hank's profile mentions correctly that his parries don't stun but fails to communicate that he has the best parry of the whole game (the one with D). I managed to get a 99+ parry combo with him. Also he seems to be able to get a "Projectile" pickup when breaking an air combo or by pressing D in the middle of an enemy's combo. The fact that Nene's projectiles are the most damaging remains also an unmentioned feature in her profile and Alien Hominid is the only character that is able to aim his projectiles upwards and, personally, I think that Tankman should have been granted the "poor projectile" defect rather than Piconjo. Only one more thing about characters: it's not very clear how lower than average some of the characters' health really is. Compare Alien Hominid's, Alloy's and Salad Fingers' descriptions.

Overall this is one the nicest things I have ever seen as far as gaming goes. Not only because of its incredible interface but also because of the characters involved. The "Other appearances" section is one of the things that makes this game unique. I watched (among others) the Madness and the Salad Fingers Series and played Madness Accelerant and Fancy Pants adventure because of that section. Given that I'm relatively new to Newgrounds I am thrilled that I have been redirected to such a great content through this game. As I said in the beginning, this is not only a great game, but it is a masterpiece in its hommage to the wonderful people who make Newgrounds what it really is.

NegativeONE responds:

Wow, the kinda review I look forward to. Lots of thoughts and fair points. I'll go through a bunch in pointform to help bring some light to them.

- launching into a crouch attack when coming out of a block is an admitted oversight - good eye! It was noticed sometime after release, but the game is too old to touch now. It'll just be a lesson in my programming journey.
- certain characters are pretty weak to others, I agree, but I think this is a natural side effect of varied character styles, and even a good thing. Slow characters can be tough to use in this one, particularly Salad Fingers and Tankman. Just gotta use that range and power to your advantage, tricky as it is.
- I still insist that Hank's parries not stunning *is* a downside, and that it's only made useful by the bonuses it provides instead, which are mentioned briefly in his pros. This is where that phantom projectile pickup is coming from.
- Nene's projectile is valued lowly because it is slow and uni-directional, while Tankman's is valued highly because it has a large area of effect and can hit an enemy multiple times in one go. Very useful is you use it on a nice flat piece. Keep in mind that you can steer it left and right.
- In the event of a sequel, we may actually print the numerical HP for each character, for those who like to really get into the stats.

Glad you used the 'Other Appearances' links. Giving newer users a few bookmarks in NG's awesome library was exactly our hope. Thanks again for the detailed review, I appreciate it and it elates me that the old pooch is still finding new fans 7 years in.