Sondro Gomez (SAGE '19)

This game is beautiful and perfectly captures that classic NES feel. The sprite of the main character is particularly impressive looking, but every piece of art is great here, including the backgrounds.

The controls are very tight and the platforming and gameplay are very fun, with thoughtfully designed levels, cool secrets, and fun power ups to boot! I kept collecting points from bell drops without really understanding why I was doing it, just because the feedback and sound effect was so satisfying.

The only point of improvement I would suggest here would be to add some more transition between levels, maybe some cinematic story pieces, maybe a worldmap, maybe add some bosses? Basically just flesh it out, but for a first demo this is incredibly polished and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I am excited to see more.

It's a pretty fun spin on the Castlevania formula, honestly! Yet to try the main project though, and I'll likely wait until the next demo's release just so I can experience it raw~

High Points:
-Controls really well and has a good set of challenges associated with it~
-Great soundtrack~ You definitely keep within the NES barrier and bring out its nuances to the fullest~
Tripping Point:
-...so I found a softlock during the third stage where falling through a ladder transition point instead of gripping the ladder(maybe I accidentally input up to grip the ladder as the transition went? I don't know...) causes not only a lack of transition but also a lack of control thereafter. Had to reset the entire game, since even the pause button wouldn't work. Of course I end up finding the weird bugs~ : |

Mixed Nuts:
-(maybe) Funny note, I had a time and a half setting up my controller for the game. For whatever reason, it wouldn't save my controls no matter how many times I tried. I was going to make a snide joke about how I had to play the game with the controller in my lap, with a finger apiece for the Square and Circle buttons on my PS4 controller(and another about the lack of music)... but it turned out the issue was that my copy of 7-Zip didn't remove the Data folder from the Zip File, which is where the file for the controls is saved. As is standard when I play games, and in reference to another name I use, I become Soudumm as opposed to Souget~ XD