[EGD] The Nightmare Begins!

Dark Days is a game created by mat7772

Game: Dark Days

Maker: mat7772

Type: Platformer

Pre-thoughts

Would you look at that, it seems EGD 7 has finally arrived, and it's raining with wonderful masterpieces of games to compete in the biggest contest on Sploder. Among them, ladies and gentleman, we find Dark Days, by mat7772, or, as I mostly like to call him, Matteh c: From the very beginning I have been excited for this game. I have seen screenshots, a trailer, and it has also been tested by yours truly. I knew that this was going to be an amazing adventure and an amazing entry for EGD 7. Let's get started.

I'm sorry to start this review of with complaining, but out of all the levels Matteh could choose to have as a thumbnail, he chose that. I'm dissapointed. No, but in all seriousness, I do think the thumbnail is a bit boring. It doesn't catch your interest that much. But to be honest, I didn't focus so much on the thumbnail, I just went ahead and played the game.

Review

Dark Days is a brilliant, and well-made RPG platformer. As any other perfect RPG, the game starts off a bit soft and easy, and eventually raises in difficulty as you progress through the levels. Dark Days has a very nice feel to it, and the story is interesting as well. Each level features tons of tons of dialogue which is good, but in some cases it can be a bit too much and you feel more like skipping it and just continuing on. Every level sets you up against different obstacles and challenges, which makes this game so much more fun, and avoiding making it too dull at times.

The action in this game was perfect. Some levels had a lot with others had less, but each level would make you encounter waves of various different enemies. For the later levels, Matteh also made sure to increase the number of enemies just slightly, that way a challenge would be added and cause the player to work for his victory.

In Dark Days, Matteh avoided placing puzzles, and focusing more on other aspects of the game. I'd say he could have placed a few, as long as they weren't too challenging and brain-hurting. That would have been perfectly fine. But instead, he chose not to place any at all. The personally think that could have given the game a nice additional feature.

One thing I did like that Matteh didn't include into this game, was traps. HECK YEAH! He had the option to place a few, but he chose not to, and I think that was a wise choice for this game especially. Adding traps into Dark Days would have ruined the game, and therefore, I'm glad I didn't find any of those. ^.^

Now, let's talk a bit about the power-ups that were placed in this game. Did they have an impact on the game? Definitely. Most power-ups consisted of health, but you could also earn a couple weapons by completing side-quests and such. Matteh placed a big amount of health in most levels. It's not like that was a problem at all, because the number of enemies that shows up in each level will definitely drain your life down a good bit, and especially for the less experienced players, even with amount of health in, the game can still be very challenging.

The scenery is probably the best thing of the whole game. It's very easy to tell that Matteh has worked very hard to make this. The scenery along with the music and darkness, makes the perfect atmosphere for Dark Days, and each level was exactly like that. The mystery and spookyness suited perfectly. I was very impressed with the result.

The placement in Matteh's games is always good. There's usually nothing wrong with it, and the same goes for Dark Days. Honestly, I don't know what to say. The placement is pretty much perfect, and goes for both enemies, power-ups and so forth. Let's just leave it at that.

Pros/Cons

Pros:

Gameplay: Honestly, the gameplay was great. It had everything you'd want in a well-made RPG.

Action: Huge amounts of action all around the game. Really added a lot to this game.

Traps: No traps were placed. Traps in this game would not be a good idea and therefore, it's brilliant.

Power-Ups: A lot of power-ups were placed in this game however, they were all needed.

Scenery: Amazing scenery. Some of the best I have seen. The atmosphere gives you a whole different view on the game as you play.

Placement: The placement was pretty much pixel perfect. I saw no flaws here.

Cons:

Thumbnail: Boring thumbnail, and I mentioned that before. Using another level as thumbnail would have been much better.

Puzzles: I saw no puzzles whatsoever in this game. By adding just a few, the game's scores could have been improved a bit.

Ratings

Gameplay: 5/5

Difficulty: 3.5/5

Action: 5/5

Puzzles: 0/5

Traps: 0/5

Scenery: 5/5

Placement: 5/5

Creativity: 4/5

Overall: 4.5/5

To sum it up, I will say that Dark Days is an amazing game. It have a lot to offer and have bunch of neat elements to it. The gameplay experience is amazing, and I bet most people will enjoy this as much as I did.

Feature-worthy?

Yes. There's absolutely no question there. The game features so many things, and it can be played through many times without getting boring. But, is it also an EGD winner? I honestly don't know. I think it will get far in the contest, but there are a lot of great entries this year.