Odyssey (AMI, 1995)
Graphics-8 Sound-6.5 Control-6.5 Challenge-7 Story-6
Level Design-7/6* Frustration-7/7.5* Fun-7/6* Originality-6.5
Overall Score-6.5
*See "tedious parts" below
+
Metroid/Wonder Boy III-like gameplay with more of a puzzle focus (transform into various animals to reach new places on the fly - two different birds (fly - WB3/Ecco; one is better in-doors and vice versa), grasshopper (jump further and higher), rolling rock/rock monster (moves fast but can't jump, can travel between holes in the background, can smash weak walls and small creatures, spider and helmet bug (walk on walls and ceilings - Metroid 2; spider can jump between walls and is faster+sees in the dark while the bug is protected against ranged attacks from above), green-man/clay humanoid (can whistle to other green-men to make them move/jump towards him as well as enter one of their huts), squirrel (small and can balance on ropes), bat (flies well in cramped spaces and sees in the dark), cat (jumps further+higher and can perform a spring jump from stand still); each form has a different strength/attack level and sometimes you switch between two forms quickly to reach new places; one NPC to trade with on one island)
Context sensitive sfx when hitting different kinds of enemies and objects
Good art direction and overall animation (Ecco the Dolphin/Shadow of the Beast-like atmosphere w/ ambient sfx)
Some interesting enemies (the transforming rock enemies that can split up into smaller versions and throw small rocks at you, archers lock onto the player and have 360 degree aiming - Yoshi's Island?)
Decent-good switch/physics/timed puzzles overall (enemies can also trigger traps and doors via switches, can hit arrows to make them trigger switches, rock momentum from dashing into walls or rolling far enough is used to increase its power to break certain blocks - some of these are similar to Wario Land 2 in design, sometimes have to trigger a chain reaction of switches then transform into a different form to reach a temporarily open door)
Regenerating health (Ys?; slow, however moving and attacking doesn't affect it here)
Can repel enemy arrows by swinging your sword at them (however you can't bounce them back at the enemies even though it looks like you can)
Minor environmental storytelling (a machine on one island creates the small humanoid clay enemies/NPCs)
+/-
Partially non-linear structure (choose between 7 sub areas on a hub map - can move between these at any point as long as you can reach the place you entered a sub area at however it's optimal to do the three outer ones (marked with symbols as you enter them) first to gain the first three transformations and on 4 of the islands you can't get anywhere without having more than the bird transformation, have to increase the "influence"/area of effect of a transformation by finding a large crystal in the area where you found the transformation crystal - this lets you transform on adjacent islands as well)
Extra lives system (pretty easy to rack up lives by finding crossed sword symbols) - the regenerating health mechanic also works even if you're moving and attacking
Save feature (can only save on the hub map screen, 10 slots per disk) and frequent checkpoints (the crystal globes that light up when touched)
Some death pits
Fairly small sprites overall
No dodge or block moves
Can't carry healing items with you for later use and they are placed items only+kind of rare (apples)
The southern island area (rock monster ability) is completely linear
Collectathon+escort/lure segment on the southeastern island (have to collect 35 coins to buy the orb here which involves luring a bunch of creatures down the right paths) - have to also build two bridges using collected planks here which is more interesting in theory than in practice (could've been used more freely to reach items elsewhere perhaps or been an ability with a time limit and/or cooldown period for more interesting puzzles)
The squirrel form feels redundant - could've climbed ropes upwards or swung in them or something (or balancing on the rope "platforms" could've required more skill)
The helmet bug also feels redundant (slower spider and there's no skill involved in using it to block arrow traps)
The cat also feels a bit redundant when there's the grasshopper
-
Some control issues (no jump height control, no mid-air control in grasshopper form, up to jump and you keep jumping after landing if you hold up, too much knockback when quickly rolling into walls as the rock - used for some puzzles but could've been a bit more fine tuned, knockback when hitting enemies and walls - see Zelda 2 or Hollow Knight, can't attack while crouching, sometimes can't hold the d-pad l/r to keep pushing a rock - have to dab the button over and over, can't crouch right after attacking to cancel the sword swing - leads to some unavoidable hits, helmet bug is too slow)
Some backtracking
Some trial & error (have to hit a switch in pure darkness at one point - before you get the bat form in the same cave so you'll think you have to find the form elsewhere based on the manual info, have to lure clay humanoids to their houses to make them transform into coins at one point - they do respawn if you screw it up at least, have to jump in a specific way to squeeze into narrow areas - can lead to falling into death pits, can get stuck and have to die if you screw up a puzzle - can press Esc to kill yourself, hard to spot the arrow traps, no area maps, sometimes hard to tell what flicking a switch accomplished - the camera doesn't pan to what you've affected), some cheap enemy placements and hits (archers can shoot you from off screen)+deaths (have to die to get out of the narrow room near the tower in area 1?, green-man form's whistle ability isn't explained)
No intro or backstory in-game
No enemy drops and placed healing items are pretty rare,
Some enemies take too many hits to kill/damage sponge enemies (the rocks which are some of the first enemies you encounter take 7+ hits), no in-game music, fairly repetitive in some ways (repeats enemies a lot, palette swapped island backgrounds with minor variations here and there, only one boss), some tedious parts (the southeastern island village collectathon quest feels a bit drawn out - luring the creatures is pretty slow and the eagle enemies that harass you throughout almost the whole segment can't be killed, drawn out helmet bug segments, one of the timing puzzles in the dark cave), no visual difference between rocks and rock enemies, no sfx when hitting or killing the archers with your sword, meh ending with no sound
Bugs:
-Can't see your avatar in bird form (WinUAE) - need to activate "immediate blitter" in chip options menu
Level Design-7/6* Frustration-7/7.5* Fun-7/6* Originality-6.5
Overall Score-6.5
*See "tedious parts" below
+
Metroid/Wonder Boy III-like gameplay with more of a puzzle focus (transform into various animals to reach new places on the fly - two different birds (fly - WB3/Ecco; one is better in-doors and vice versa), grasshopper (jump further and higher), rolling rock/rock monster (moves fast but can't jump, can travel between holes in the background, can smash weak walls and small creatures, spider and helmet bug (walk on walls and ceilings - Metroid 2; spider can jump between walls and is faster+sees in the dark while the bug is protected against ranged attacks from above), green-man/clay humanoid (can whistle to other green-men to make them move/jump towards him as well as enter one of their huts), squirrel (small and can balance on ropes), bat (flies well in cramped spaces and sees in the dark), cat (jumps further+higher and can perform a spring jump from stand still); each form has a different strength/attack level and sometimes you switch between two forms quickly to reach new places; one NPC to trade with on one island)
Context sensitive sfx when hitting different kinds of enemies and objects
Good art direction and overall animation (Ecco the Dolphin/Shadow of the Beast-like atmosphere w/ ambient sfx)
Some interesting enemies (the transforming rock enemies that can split up into smaller versions and throw small rocks at you, archers lock onto the player and have 360 degree aiming - Yoshi's Island?)
Decent-good switch/physics/timed puzzles overall (enemies can also trigger traps and doors via switches, can hit arrows to make them trigger switches, rock momentum from dashing into walls or rolling far enough is used to increase its power to break certain blocks - some of these are similar to Wario Land 2 in design, sometimes have to trigger a chain reaction of switches then transform into a different form to reach a temporarily open door)
Regenerating health (Ys?; slow, however moving and attacking doesn't affect it here)
Can repel enemy arrows by swinging your sword at them (however you can't bounce them back at the enemies even though it looks like you can)
Minor environmental storytelling (a machine on one island creates the small humanoid clay enemies/NPCs)
+/-
Partially non-linear structure (choose between 7 sub areas on a hub map - can move between these at any point as long as you can reach the place you entered a sub area at however it's optimal to do the three outer ones (marked with symbols as you enter them) first to gain the first three transformations and on 4 of the islands you can't get anywhere without having more than the bird transformation, have to increase the "influence"/area of effect of a transformation by finding a large crystal in the area where you found the transformation crystal - this lets you transform on adjacent islands as well)
Extra lives system (pretty easy to rack up lives by finding crossed sword symbols) - the regenerating health mechanic also works even if you're moving and attacking
Save feature (can only save on the hub map screen, 10 slots per disk) and frequent checkpoints (the crystal globes that light up when touched)
Some death pits
Fairly small sprites overall
No dodge or block moves
Can't carry healing items with you for later use and they are placed items only+kind of rare (apples)
The southern island area (rock monster ability) is completely linear
Collectathon+escort/lure segment on the southeastern island (have to collect 35 coins to buy the orb here which involves luring a bunch of creatures down the right paths) - have to also build two bridges using collected planks here which is more interesting in theory than in practice (could've been used more freely to reach items elsewhere perhaps or been an ability with a time limit and/or cooldown period for more interesting puzzles)
The squirrel form feels redundant - could've climbed ropes upwards or swung in them or something (or balancing on the rope "platforms" could've required more skill)
The helmet bug also feels redundant (slower spider and there's no skill involved in using it to block arrow traps)
The cat also feels a bit redundant when there's the grasshopper
-
Some control issues (no jump height control, no mid-air control in grasshopper form, up to jump and you keep jumping after landing if you hold up, too much knockback when quickly rolling into walls as the rock - used for some puzzles but could've been a bit more fine tuned, knockback when hitting enemies and walls - see Zelda 2 or Hollow Knight, can't attack while crouching, sometimes can't hold the d-pad l/r to keep pushing a rock - have to dab the button over and over, can't crouch right after attacking to cancel the sword swing - leads to some unavoidable hits, helmet bug is too slow)
Some backtracking
Some trial & error (have to hit a switch in pure darkness at one point - before you get the bat form in the same cave so you'll think you have to find the form elsewhere based on the manual info, have to lure clay humanoids to their houses to make them transform into coins at one point - they do respawn if you screw it up at least, have to jump in a specific way to squeeze into narrow areas - can lead to falling into death pits, can get stuck and have to die if you screw up a puzzle - can press Esc to kill yourself, hard to spot the arrow traps, no area maps, sometimes hard to tell what flicking a switch accomplished - the camera doesn't pan to what you've affected), some cheap enemy placements and hits (archers can shoot you from off screen)+deaths (have to die to get out of the narrow room near the tower in area 1?, green-man form's whistle ability isn't explained)
No intro or backstory in-game
No enemy drops and placed healing items are pretty rare,
Some enemies take too many hits to kill/damage sponge enemies (the rocks which are some of the first enemies you encounter take 7+ hits), no in-game music, fairly repetitive in some ways (repeats enemies a lot, palette swapped island backgrounds with minor variations here and there, only one boss), some tedious parts (the southeastern island village collectathon quest feels a bit drawn out - luring the creatures is pretty slow and the eagle enemies that harass you throughout almost the whole segment can't be killed, drawn out helmet bug segments, one of the timing puzzles in the dark cave), no visual difference between rocks and rock enemies, no sfx when hitting or killing the archers with your sword, meh ending with no sound
Bugs:
-Can't see your avatar in bird form (WinUAE) - need to activate "immediate blitter" in chip options menu