[MNM] God This Tower Is Tall.

Review by moolatycoon on Saturday, May 19th 2012
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Click to play Azure

Azure is a game created by ravicale

Hey everybody, today I will be reviewing Azure by Ravioli =P. Now, Grandquest initially won the MNM Contest for first place, and it won a review, however, since I have already reviewed Grandquest, and none of the other editors can, I decided to just review A game of Ravi's. This game has been hyped up for quite a while, unfortunately at the release, it didn't seem to do so well due to the intense difficulties it provided. I never really gave it an honest go, so now I will try it for myself. This game has received many positive comments, and Ravi is one of my favorite game makers, so let's dive into the creative workings of this game. I will be going over things in worst to best order as usual, I know that big paragraph hurts people's eyes. xP


Difficulty


WARNING: Incessant Rambling ahead--->WELL, the difficulty in this game is definitely the largest flaw. While it wasn't very hard to get far in, it was rather tedious. I thought Riding the Snake was frustrating, but this, *shudders*. See, this game is moderately long, 11 levels of REAL gameplay, all of them brilliant mind you, but back on track, let me give you an insight on the difficultly. *Note this game is pretty long* IF YOU HAPPEN TO GET PREETY FAR IN LEVEL 10, AND THEN 11, well that's just dandy, BUT THEN LEVEL 12 (or 13) COMES AROUND, and well, you can tell what happens next. If you lose and make on foul mistake, you have to start ALL 15 LEVELS OVER. Why can't there be saving? D= Anyways, yea, can you guess which lucky fellow that happened to? ME! While it was fun to get there, personally, I am not ready to try again. The overall difficulty has taken away from the overall addictiveness of the game, heck there is a fatal trap on the third level of the game(which is where the REAL game starts) Don't you think that it is just slightly overkill not to provide a heck a lot of lives, and just kill off the player at the start? That doesn't want to make me play again, while this is just my opinion, this was shared amongst others. Moving on....


Scenery


Yeah, yeah, Ravi was probably trying to reduce lag in this game by not adding a ton of scenery, but it was kinda boring with out torches, or statues, but alas. I will give Ravi the fact that there was no light, adding to the dark game play, and the few bits of scenery he did use were clever, but I just wish there was more. He could have done so much to make it look nicer, but instead he stood with a barren look through out the entire tower of hope, and what everything rests on, he couldn't have made it slightly golder, or something? Whatever. Anyway, like I said, not a horrid job on this, but I just wish there was more. Not bad I guess.


Block Placement


Ok, for the record, I think that this is one of the best aspects of the game. I found that the blocks were placed in array to fool the playing into going one way, and falling into a trap. Ravi, as always, has mastered the art of block placement. He used narrow hall-ways, and scenery blocks to make it appear to be solid, but it is really not. The jumps were cleverly placed, and I found that this increased the game play overall. The puzzles, themes, and traps all coordinated in harmony with the block placement. There were a few spots where he could have improved, but it was pretty good overall.


Puzzles & Traps


While I said the traps were frustrating, I never said they weren't clever. For the traps, it seemed Ravi was able to predict where the player would go, and how the player would go, making you die fast. However frustrating this is, you have to admit it is smart. Ravi has used tons of traps through out the course of the game, ranging from death by lava, to death by spikes, to death by things that I don't even know what they are. The theme and the traps went together as well. I mean, this is a dark game, and a lot of the traps led to a certain death. For the puzzles side, I found them brilliant. Using the multiple power ups you get, you use them to solve puzzles and avoid death. Ravioli has never ceased to amaze me in his creative workings of puzzle making. Even the jumps on Level 13 (which were what killed me) are pretty smart IMO. Ravi did a nice job in this aspect.


Layout


Yeah, this is pretty much the grand daddy of a game. If this is not the first or second best thing about the game, it isn't that great of a game then. Ravi did a nice job of placing the blocks in the right spots, scenery blocks in the right hallways, traps in the right areas, ect. While the game was kind of boring to look at, it kept you on your toes as you avoided traps, solved puzzles, and got to the top. This game's layout was brilliant, aside from the length x difficulty it game, I found it almost flawless. Ravi has never failed to disappoint, and it didn't happen today. I found that all of the jumps were made so that they had to be perfect. That was pretty cool, especially on level 13(12?) where the entire level was jumping from thing to thing, praying to the thing at the top of the tower that you would not fall at that point. ~shudders~


Ratings


Screw rating explanations, they no look neattt.....


Difficulty: _/_____
 
Scenery: __.5/_____
 
Block Placement: ____/_____
 
Traps: ___.5/_____
 
Puzzles: ____/_____
 
Layout: _____/_____
 
Overall: ___.5/_____
 

Overall


I found this game feature worthy, brilliant. Maybe not Ravi's best game, but that doesn't mean it wasn't good. He needs to work on giving out more lives, and just decreasing the difficulty of the game. Not everyone wants to play an extremely hard game, because to be honest, most of the MS aren't the best at playing games like this. Not a bad shot at glory, just try and take the suggestions I gave you. The puzzles were brilliant, the layout was amazing, and overall the game was fun to play(until you hit the sixth or seventh death on the first trap xP)

 
 


Azure Reviewed by moolatycoon on Saturday, May 19th 2012. [MNM] God This Tower Is Tall. - A game review written by moolatycoon for the game 'Azure' by ravicale. Rating: 3