Отзывы

• gamedeal user

  Nov 20, 2021

  [h2]Good Effort For An Effectively PC Exclusive Metroidvania. Partial Recommendation 7/10[/h2] [hr][/hr] [i][b]For Linux & Steam Deck: [/b]Platinum Experience. User Verified on Proton 6.3-7[/i] [hr][/hr] [b]Note: This game requires mouse and keyboard. Attacks will not function with controllers[/b] [hr][/hr] An underwater metroidvania is certainly an interesting new spin to the genre, and game studio 18Light did well in attempting to create something new. The result is a game that plays like a 2D side-scrolling shoot-em up metroidvania. Great distinct art-style, creative world-building, great enemy design and boss fights, good controls for the most and an interesting combat does offset some of the flaws that the game has. There are however, a number of glaring flaws. Particularly, an unfair mechanic that limits player choice without proper reason, cuts scenes that often disrupts the flow of the game, level design that is claustrophobic and cramped and story-telling that is delivered through unnecessarily long dialogue and exposition dump. However, the positives still outweighs it’s flaws, and there is enough here for any metroidvania fan to find a mostly enjoyable time. All in all, good effort by the Taiwanese devs. Partially recommended. [hr][/hr] [h3]What’s Excellent[/h3] [table] [tr] [td]1. Great visuals and graphics. [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]2. Imaginative world-building. [/td] [/tr] [/table] No doubt Pronty’s overall presentation is impressive. The graphics are stunning, with good use of colors and animation The art-style is distinct and easily identifiable with creative enemy design. The world of Pronty is also quite realized, featuring a future where it’s an apocalyptic future scenario but it plays out under the ocean. The protagonist Pronty it seems is a part of a genetically modified creatures the humans created to defend underwater cities. The premise is quite interesting. [hr][/hr] [h3]What’s Good[/h3] [table] [tr] [td]1. Controls and movement for the most part, is good.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]2. Interesting combat with a weapon that moves separately from the main body.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]3. Boss fights are fun[/td] [/tr] [/table] So how does the controls and movement feel underwater? It feels good for the most part. You have 360 degrees movement underwater with the WASD keys and it doesn’t feel sluggish. There is no acceleration, deceleration, inertia or momentum; Pronty moves at a constant speed and brakes immediately at a full stop. It is very similar to controlling a 2D sides-scrolling shoot-em up aircraft. Combat is another distinct feature. Aside from controlling Pronty with the WASD keys, you also control Bront – the robot javelin fish – with the mouse. Bront is your main attack and he can reach the entire screen. Controlling 2 separate entities is Pronty’s core game mechanic and you’ll be doing a lot multi-tasking during combat. None showcases the combat mechanic more than the boss fights. Bosses are well designed with a lot of inspiration from ocean creatures. The fights are fun and challenging for the most part and at other times it can be unfair which I will explain further below. All in all though they are well done and are the highlights of the game. [hr][/hr] [h3]What’s Not Good[/h3] [table] [tr] [td]1. Stamina bar is a mistake. It arbitrarily limits players freedom of choice, and gives enemies an unfair advantage.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]2. Level design is cramped and claustrophobic, stifling the good controls and movement making them under-utilised.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]3. Cut scenes often disrupt the flow of the game. They are very long with unnecessary banter. [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]4. Story-telling is told clumsily with too many exposition, leaving very little to players own imagination. [/td] [/tr] [/table] First and foremost, why need a stamina bar? The only reason I can think off is that the developers wanted to add an arbitrary and unnecessary impediment to make the game more difficult. The problem is, the bosses and enemies attacks are designed with a game play that don’t require a stamina bar. Most enemies in a souls-like game have a measured, deliberate and slow attacks. The enemies in Pronty attacks like a bullet-hell shoot-em up game. How is it then a fair fight when you cripple the player by putting a stamina bar to limit their skill? The level design unfortunately, is disappointing. You’d think that in the vast deep ocean, you’d get a 2D open world but instead, what you get are tunnels and burrows. You are given controls to move 360 degree but you’re only allowed to inches. The levels are created like platforming stages, in a game where you don’t need platforming. The most egregious thing about Pronty however, is the amount of lengthy cut scenes. In Hollow Knight, Ori and Metroid Dread, the cut scenes were few and far between but they always made an impact. In Pronty, there are cut scenes right after cut scenes, and it goes on and on; some with just unnecessary banter, others is dumping paragraphs worth of exposition. This really kills the flow of the game and gets old and annoying really fast. Lastly, while the premise of the story is interesting, the delivery leaves much to be desired. A lot of it is through exposition dump, others are told through collectibles. None of it is left to the players imagination. Lore should told sparingly, and with purpose; the best lore are told when left to the players imagination. [hr][/hr] [h3]Conclusion[/h3] While there are a number of concerns, the good things that Pronty has to offer does outweigh the bad. Generally, Pronty is still an enjoyable game. Partially recommended.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 22, 2021

  An underwater metroidvania with very good quality. Both visual and audio designs in general are great, and the combat mechanic is quite fresh, as your character doesn't attack directly, but relies on a bionic javalin at your side - the combat and puzzle solving combination is quite varied and satisfying. In terms of boss designs there are a few very exceptional ones. I am playing the middle difficulty and I felt some of them are kinda too easy, but some of them are really brutal for me. However I would say most of the bosses are designed very uniquely and you almost don't see any rehashes at all, most of them are both visually and mechanically varied and great looking (so to speak). And you do need to occasionally switch up and experiment about your skills to deal with different situations. Level design is great, all the shortcuts make sense, and for any shortcuts that are designed to reach bosses on retry runs there are even movement speedups that you can take, so those are obviously very intentional, which is good. Also I really like the mapping functionality -- it's a small QoL thing, but it's really useful. The "fully explored" map color hint is also really useful. There are a lot of collectibles in terms of background flavor texts for worldbuilding, some of them do feel a bit useless (like even for just worldbuilding), but there are a set of them are about a certain mystery that you may or may not find in game (the only MAJOR thing that is not explicit and thus very missable if you just play the game normally). Getting the clues for that is super satisfying for me, and is really surprising by the end. The English text and voice over could be a bit better, but they are not too bad as is. Overall I definitely recommend anyone who are into metroidvania and/or 2D-sidescrolling action games to pick this up. Edit: Typo
• gamedeal user

  Nov 24, 2021

  Amazing hand crafted graphics, solid combat, great boss fights. I love the underwater theme and the enemy design. If you are uncertain, try the demo, it's quite long. This game is totally underestimated and underrated.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 14, 2021

  I didn’t think I would like this game since it is an underwater MV, but I ended up loving it! It is one of my all-time favorites now! The trait that I thought was going to be its disadvantage ended up being its advantage. Maneuvering in the underwater environment was just like starting all over again with MV‘s as it felt so fresh and unique.
• beautypageantcat

  Dec 29, 2021

  This game is incredibly tutorial-heavy and linear-feeling. I'm not usually one to complain about games being to "hand-holdly" (I prefer some guidance), but... 40 minutes in and I feel like I'm still in the tutorial. That's fine for a strategy game, but it's frustrating for a metroidvania that's rather simple. Maybe I'm spoiled by Hollow Knight, but I kind of just want to explore the world and have fun, not be locked onto an exact path everywhere I go. I'm also struggling with controls, which are strange and often unintuitive. It feels like this game could be benefited by cleaning a lot of the controls up. In order to navigate the title screen I have to use arrow keys (?) and enter, but to do the in-game menu I need to use my mouse. In order to attack, I click. In order to interact with (most) objects, I use the interact button. I click through dialogue but have to long click on some pop ups. Other important and similar things use space rather inconsistently. It feels like almost all of these could be condensed to one button, with maybe two types of input needed MAX. Instead I'm remembering a list of like... a dozen different controls for every action I could possibly take split in bizarre ways to the point I have to keep bringing up the controls setting menu to remember what controls do what. Seems like a cute game, but until it gets less mind-numbingly frustrating to play, I think I'll leave it be.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 3, 2022

  No more silly platforming, because we have a swimming metroidvania on our fins! The combat is a bit spammy, but otherwise it's very engaging. It can also be absolutely terrifying (I'm looking at you, undead finless shark with knives sticking out of you in an arena filled with glass shards), but what can be more awful than destroying our environment and with it our future just for something as silly as money? We are so fucked :) The developers predict underwater cities and fish armed with pieces of plastic and glass by the year 2400. I predict that there will be no underwater cities and that we'll be fighting with trash-armed fish in the next 30 years.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 7, 2022

  Needs more intense music for the boss battles, other than that it's a really good game
• gamedeal user

  Jan 8, 2022

  [h1]Positives:[/h1] + Controls: Being set entirely underwater, the two-dimensional controls got a lot more thought in this game than most, and actually feel fun and responsive to use. The player is relatively speedy (once you unlock the dash early in the game) and there are many one-way breakable walls to create shortcuts in the world, meaning that you don't spend a tremendous amount of time not doing anything interesting. + Combat: The player's weapon is an automated drone which they can command to do melee attacks on nearby enemies. The player can do basic attacks by rapidly pressing the attack button or charge attacks by holding it, and there are equipable items that can optimize both styles of attacks. Players also have a variety of skills that use stamina points and are useful in combat. + Exploration: Collectible items that make the player more powerful in various ways encourage exploration and the world map changes a room's color to indicate if you've found everything there, making exploring very intuitive and rewarding. I was able to 100% the game without looking up where anything was. + Story/Lore: Readable logs, enemy descriptions, and NPC dialogue create some very interesting lore about Royla, its inhabitants, and the world as a whole. There are multiple endings depending on whether the player goes to the final boss as soon as they are able or completes certain optional objectives. + Art: Every room and area has a unique and detailed background, even the outposts (which function like a save room in metroid games). The cutscenes are portrayed in a very cool comic-book style. The enemy design is very unique and weird, which if fitting for them being mutant combinations of sea-life and pollution. [h1]Neutrals:[/h1] ± Music: In the few places that there actually is music (title screen and boss fights) its pretty good. However, most of the game only has ambient noise, which is atmospheric but not super notable. ± Bosses: The bosses seemed like a mixed bag. Some were very cool and tough, but some were extremely easy (garbage maiden) and some were a bit tedious and spammy (meduso magna). ± Difficulty: I didn't find the game to be particularly difficult (aside of an optional bonus boss) on the hardest difficulty, but if you don't explore as much or just aren't as good at video games you may have a different experience. There are 3 difficulty settings. ± Length: It took me about 11 hours to 100% the game. [h1]Negatives:[/h1] - Translations: 18Light is a Taiwanese studio, so the game was originally in Chinese. The English translation is serviceable but some of the wording is a bit weird. For a few memory board descriptions it is hard to tell exactly what they do because of this. - Tutorial Exposition: In the beginning of the game there is a lot of dialogue that tells you how to do just about everything. A notable example is when you get the Power Grinder ability: Bront stops you to tell you that the gene bottle will give you an ability, then you pick it up and he stops you again to demonstrate what the ability does, and then in the next room he stops you again to recommend that you use it on the enemies there. Luckily this mostly goes away after the first few areas, so it isn't a major issue for long. [h1]Conclusion:[/h1] * I strongly recommend this game for anyone who likes metroidvania-style games. From a mechanical perspective, the underwater controls and combat style make it play dramatically differently from other games in the genre while still retaining the traits that make them fun. It draws noticeable inspiration from Hollow Night, so if you liked that game then you will probably like this one too. I recommend using a controller, as the joystick is much better for the full range of underwater motion and and for aiming Bront.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 15, 2022

  What do you get when you mash up Aquaria (as the ONLY competent underwater metroidvania - until now, that is) with Bioshock (in terms of art deco aesthetics), add a lot of personality, cool story that tackles real-life issues at hand, and mysteries both human and otherworldly/eldritch in nature? Enter - Pronty! Its evocative underwater vibes and atmosphere, mixed with some really good sound design, suck you oh so easily into this failed utopia, where humanity, unable to tackle and solve burning issues and also due to wars, decided to submerge itself and try living underwater, in an authoritarian society governed by Draconian rules and guided by utopian principles which the corrupt exploited at every corner. Because of this, and also due to mismanaging waste (which is a BIG problem when you live underwater), the underwater life mutated and turned against the humanity in its domed cities. As the titular Pronty, together with your combat-javelin Bront, you awaken to the society already in ruins with your mission to save Royla - the underwater capitol of humanity. To say gameplay is slick would be an understatement - it flows like water, deadly and precise like a well-aimed torpedo, and is a breath of fresh air for metroidvania genre which often incorporates tedious platforming nowadays. There is also your standard Hollow Knight-esque badge system (here called "Memory Boards"), classic normal upgrades in form of ability/skill and passive enhancements for both Pronty and Bront (which you need to unlock patch and gain access to various collectibles and more Memory Boards). Enemies are fair, and quite a few rely on ambush tactics (where they are hidden either in plain sight (coming under garbage heaps or from rocks) or in little secluded crevices that usually lead to a secret location. They are certainly colorful and splendidly designed, as are the bosses who also presented a challenge (some more than others). To top it all off, there are numerous challenge rooms, which range from racing to dodging enemies to beating ever increasing waves of enemies for valuable prizes that can only be unlocked in this way (with the obligatory Boss Rush mode after you beat it all, which unlocks a skin for Pronty). All of the above is just a brief sample of a game that needs to be experienced PERSONALLY! Forget watching Let's Plays and reading about the plot on the net - you owe it to yourself to play this game sans any spoilers, read every phonograph record, gawk at the beautifully rendered levels and try and uncover some pretty gruesome secrets at the bottom of the ocean, for only then will you, after the credits roll, raise your arms high into the air and wish from God almighty that 18LIGHT would grant us all a sequel, for only then can we feel complete knowing that there are more fishy adventures to be experienced and epic stories to be told in this unique universe.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 24, 2022

  Pretty underrated game tbh, I played it on its hardest difficulty (how it should be played) and had a blast. The story was interesting and the only bad thing about it was the bosses difficulty is a bit all over the place around electric hydra. but other than that good game 8/10