![]() I got annoyed at the difficulty spikes, I hated the switching mechanic, and I really deplored having to restart the entire level sequence if you died. With a minimal HUD of just your health status at the top left, EP is a game that forces you to do better in order to progress further but unfortunately, the low-energy aura it gives off did not inspire me to play for too long. I can see the creativity wanting to shine bright, and I can feel the enthusiasm of the developers bubbling up and itching to really pull out all the stops, but something stifles it all: the core pillars of its control system. Later levels see you flying on a broomstick to take down a cyborg cow, flitting around under-da-sea as a mermaid out-manoeuvring a monocled octopus and ghost crustaceans, dodging lava and jumping on dragonflies to thwart a princess frog, buffalo with miniguns and mobster roosters with a time-travelling chicken defending the fountain of time, and finishing it off with a good old fashioned tree battle. Later on, I would realise it was a stylistic choice to alter the characters into different styles at the end of each battle, like shiny-eyed anime style, or 2D Tim-Burton-Esq, only for them to then revert to "normal" 1930s-looking animation. I also didn't initially understand why the first boss fight (a witch on a moon) enters phase 2 of the battle with the characters looking completely different and somewhat like a cheap flash animation. The reason is that the clipping of the enemies can prevent you from striking the right one with the right colour because of their pixels overlapping as they layered atop one another. When having to switch projectile type to take down enemies in order to regain health, I found it infuriating to fire at a crowd of enemies only to not destroy a single one. It's frustrating to have to endure these controls, and you get overwhelmed with projectiles and crowded enemies in places, even on the baseline easy difficulty.Įnchanted Portals would be semi-passable for the platforming part if there were more interesting platforming sections, and if there weren't any baddies. When jumping it's floaty, and really hit or miss whether you make the jump over an enemy you literally just managed but for a second time. Perhaps I'm too critical, but when you tap the D-Pad direction to change your chromatic ammunition while moving, your character stops moving, which breaks the flow and causes you to take a hit or three if you're lucky. Given its bullet-hell-style gameplay of dodging and firing, it would have been just fine had the developers not included the coloured aura system that sees you only able to down green-shrouded enemies with green firepower. Moving with the left stick and changing powers with the D-Pad is clunky at best and at worst it slows down your gameplay. The left analogue stick controls movement whilst the D-Pad selects which of your three special powers you will be spamming throughout the proceeding level. Sure there is a legend you can look at in the game options, but it's no use there, you need to have an example and give the player a chance to feel out what the game is about and how it should work going forward.Ĭontrolling the game is pretty standard fare too with Cross to jump or double jump, Square to dodge, Circle to block, R1 to Melee, and L2 to shoot. The tutorial level gave me Ghouls 'n Ghosts vibes which was initially compelling but it failed to really teach me much or prepare me for the proceeding levels. It is gorgeous in itself, with zero slowdowns no matter the number of sprites on screen, and plenty of animated projectiles and mindless enemies trying to prevent your progress. Jumping in, the game's animation is nothing short of silky smooth with a definite nod to the Disney cartoons of yesteryear and the more modern games it wants to emulate. ![]() ![]() Slick Animation, Interesting (in-game) Visuals
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