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It can be tough to make a runner that stands out these days, but that is the least of Aerial_Knight's Never Yield's concerns. With a distinct visual style and energetic original soundtrack, this game constantly works to grab your attention, but it only manages to do so in fits and starts. So many of this independently developed project's many pieces just don't quite gel the way you expect them to, making it hard to fully appreciate all of its cool ideas.

Detroit dystopia

Aerial_Knight's Never Yield has you play as Wally, a man on the run from a facility where he was seemingly cloned. This kicks off what is essentially an extended chase sequence that takes you into the heart of a futuristic version of Detroit, complete with drone armies, robot legs, and a genetically modifed arch rival who can shoot swords via telekinesis.

As Wally runs along, there are all kinds of things that get in his way, but you can tap on the screen in different places to have Wally sprint, jump, vault, or slide to avoid injury and keep moving forward. The further you get into the city, you learn slightly more about Wally, though only through wordless cutscenes that don't truly spell anything out.

Awkward acrobatics

The most standout quality of Aerial_Knight's Never Yield is definitely its audio/visual style. With a low-poly–almost cel-shaded–look and a soundtrack of propulsive beats, the game evokes iconic experiences like Jet Grind Radio while never feeling like it's cribbing material from them.

Unfortuntely, Never Yield almost never quite feels as good to play as it looks. This starts with the game's controls, which awkwardly (and invisibly) divide your device screen into four buttons (though you can opt to play via swipes). Neither of these schemes feels quite right, though, particularly because Never Yield also has a slow motion mechanic designed to help you read and react to obstacles more easily but sometimes activates so early ahead of a hazard that you end up vaulting right into a low table or slide just ahead of a tunnel instead of smoothy traversing them as expected.

Concocted cohesion

Never Yield isn't a terribly long game, but that's honestly probably a good thing. By the time you're about halfway through it, obstacles start looking more than familiar. Once you dial in how to time maneuvers around the slow motion windows, you can easily sail through levels without having to retry at all.

It's in this state of familiarity and flow that Aerial_Knight's Never Yield's starts to shine. Stringing together long combos of parkour while buildings explode around you and a jazzy hip-hop beat plays in the background can be pretty satisfying. That said, it's just not that easy to find this state of being in the game, primarily because of the controls. If you hit an obstacle and have to restart, Never Yield does quickly pop you back to a checkpoint, but as those get further and further apart between tons of obstacles, dying because you reacted to a cue that was too early gets more and more frustrating.

The bottom line

I wish more of Aerial_Knight's Never Yield came together to feel a little tighter and well composed. Almost everything going on in it is fine, good, and even cool on paper, but they just don't seem fully realized and stitched together seamlessly here. As a result, Aerial_Knight's Never Yield is certainly a memorable experience, but not necessarily one I can fully recommend.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/aerialknights-never-yield-review/

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The pitch for M.Duck is tantalizingly succinct. Billed as a roguelite about a duck that knows magic, this game has a surprisingly firm sense of what it is and what it offers, and it does a great job of backing up its claims with creative design wrapped around its small, endearing scope.

Duck dungeon

M.Duck is a dungeon-crawler where the protagonist is a duck with a magic wand. You control the duck using virtual buttons to move it left or right across the bottom of the screen and fire off magic bullets at enemies that appear in what is basically a shooting gallery arena.

The goal is simply to defeat every enemy in each wave without dying. If you do, you may be granted a selection of upgrades to your abilities that will help you with the tougher enemies ahead. If you don't, you can try again from the beginning of the game.

Smart simplicity

If this all sounds really straightforward and simple, it's kind of because it is. M.Duck really only complicates itself in one way: The controls are intentionally designed to make it so you cannot shoot your wand and move at the same time. The ramifications of this one change are pretty massive, though, as nearly all of M.Duck's enemy designs and challenge hinge on this single design choice.

The upgrades you earn as you progress through a run can certainly help you compensate for this limitation. For example, there are unlocks that let you move faster or fire more shots, but none of them sidestep the core restraint, and every level in the game is primarily concerned with forcing you to juggle and choose between dodging and attacking at all times.

Charming canard

M.Duck smartly presents a ton of different upgrade options, enemy types, and even randomized bosses to ensure that playing and replaying the game doesn't grow old too quickly. It also has a couple of different difficulty options and a boatload of achievements for you to unlock so you have a good chunk of goals to work toward, even after you've already completed the game.

That said, the game can get a little deflating if and when deep runs get cut short. Luckily, M. Duck isn't a terribly long game, and its skill ceiling is such that you don't need to rely on specific powers to do well. If you stick with it and its colorful dungeons long enough, challenges that once seemed incredibly hard start to feel more achieveable.

The bottom line

M.Duck's confidence and charm makes for a pretty compelling package. It has a great sense of challenge that doesn't overcomplicate things, while also never feeling like it's something that got watered down to feel manageable on a phone. It's just a really great dungeon-crawler that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/m-duck-review/