Be Thankful We Had Games Like These...

Dark Archon: Burning Entity is a game created by gameraterz

Happy Thanksgiving!

Whtever's 9th Review

Time beaten: 9:51

Pre-thoughts

GRZ told me that this was his personal favorite out of all of his puzzle games and that I should try it for a real challenge. I knew I best get ready for anything...

Review

AND NO, I DID NOT USE THE WALK-THROUGH IN THE DESCRIPTION OF THIS GAME.

I will start out by saying that this a really early game, made in September of 2008. With that being said, we know that this game is very early for its genre, a shooter puzzle.

I felt nostalgic playing through this game, looking at the ancestors of the puzzles we so commonly see today, in this game especially with the door puzzles. I've seen many of those, but I was still quite impressed with the ways GRZ used them, like at the beginning with the hidden "switch" to open the doors, to a "beat the door before it closes" puzzle a little later on and one where you use an ally to open it. (But not in the cliche form we see today, it was on a larger scale) Dark Archon: Burning Entity gets creativity points for that, and of course the deception that GRZ likes to use in all of his games.

Now, this game is divided into two parts, the part before the 2 you see on the map is section 1, and get this, the part after the 2 is section 2. Amazing amirite? But anyway, section 1 had quite a few twists and traps that kept me on the edge my seat. GRZ very smoothly worked those traps in, with some comic relief of course. That and with the excellently placed enemies in section 1 there was a good amount of action as well. Really all of the objects in section 1 were so well utilized from concealing keys blocking your path and forcing you to think or holding you at the mercy of enemies to tricking you.

Section 2 had some brilliant parts in it as well, but it just was not as strong. Some of the traps were obvious, and some of the enemies were easily destroyed without them having to lay a claw on you. Also the mojo at the start of the section was a bit much. Still, there was one amazing puzzle involving a yellow key. It was quite surprising, and creative, and fun.

Conclusion

Overall, a great game, and I see why its regarded as a classic. You have to be a little patient because GRZ likes to mess with ya with traps and hidden enemies, but it's a good game to play if you want a look at the original shooter puzzles in their true forms, and overall very fun.

Overall Score: 8.5/10 (Today's standards: 7.75/10)

I gave it some credit because of how long ago it was made, and how the ideas in this game were probably new. I think that it could potentially be a 10/10 if GRZ were to polish it a little, and make it a little longer, and strengthen up the end.