Crystal Cave

  • Rating: 7.4

Reviews and comments

    sonicnathan 1 30 Aug 2007, 00:41 (edited 11 May 09, 23:45)

    8Recommended:

    Ok I promised a full review almost a year ago and I’m going to write it now that I have nothing better to do.

    It’s been a while, but i still remember. Now I did help test this pack, but I’m going to be completely unbiased.

    Story
    I have to say, the story is very basic. You are exploring Chrysalis cave to find a gem called the Gem of live and then everything goes to hell. Not much meat, but at least it’s better then being told what to do by a frog. (ALA: Jazz x)
    5/10
    Eyecandey
    Level 1:
    Great job here! this conversion isn’t that great. but the eyecandey is great. The background can look weird at first, but It still looks good. Everything’s here. Lots of flashy lights, waterfalls, gold pillars,and lots of money. I really think the level looks like Chrysalis. The lighting is pretty cool and there are some nice touches that are put in link the word JJ2 spelled in those flashy things. The only think that could improve this is more layer 3 stuff. Overall, great stuff!

    Level 2:
    I LOVED the eyecandey here. The buildings and fog look great. A lot of tiles are used to give a really cool industrial look. it even includes toxic barrels! This is about the closest your going to get to a Robotnik level look without using a sonic level. I love the use of the fans as it adds life to the level. If more layer 3 was used, this would get a 10 in eyecandey.

    Bonus Stage:
    I’m not going to rate this as it’s just designed as a test level, not as an eyecandey level. Even so, I still think it looks cool!
    I’m not rating the last levels because there just boss levels and as such, don’t really deserve to be rated. I will tell you though that the final boss background is pretty cool.
    7/10

    Gameplay
    Level 1:
    Great! The gameplay is heavily puzzle based making the gameplay feel different then most levels. there is a variety of different obstacles from layer 3 mazes, to basic break the crate puzzles, to dodging hordes of spike bolls. There’s also some cools things like fining the correct ammo to shoot a crate through the wall. The layer 3 puzzles annoyed the heck out of me but there bearable. there was also a puzzle where you had to remember a sequence of numbers. (I wrote them down) The length is good and the secrets are well hidden. On easy, the difficulty is medium and I had fun. Good job!

    Level 2:
    This level is a lot shorter then the last but the innovation was a lot greater. You start off of course with some layer 3 puzzles. Once you get through those, you go down a shaft and OH SNAP! You hit toxic barrels. this is where it gets innovating. You turn into a frog and you have to go through some mazes and hordes of flying lizards to find a crate that opens the way to the antidote. To break to crate, you have to push it over some TNT which is cool. the lizards are annoying, but you can use the TNT to get rid of them. overall, fun gameplay, I just wish it was as long as level 1.

    Bonus stage:
    This is fun. It’s test with a cool counter. you get as far as you can and you get prizes biased on how well you did. Not going to include in rating because it’s just a bonus stage, but it’s still fun.
    Boss stages won’t get rated but it’s cool to see the rocket turtle getting used!
    7/10
    Enemie Placement
    The enemies in all the levels are pretty good. Variety and they all fit with the tileset. However, there are some areas where they were put in unfair locations that I had no way to fight back.
    7/10
    Pickups
    Good again. the ammo was pretty good. There was just the right amount of ammo in the level to making it so it was still a challenge. Food is good and I only got 1 sugar rush. Gems aren’t used that much. Save points are in good locations and carrots are good. I did die a couple of times.
    8/10

    Final score:34/50
    Score: 7.5
    DR? Go ahead. this is a fun pack to play for a little and Spaz put a lot of effort into it. I look forward to more of his work!

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    Typhoon Bunny 30 Sep 2007, 15:06

    8Recommended:

    -

    This is a short review. It has less impact on the upload's score.

    ZAPPER 31 Aug 2007, 17:54

    7Recommended:

    Hmm. This is a much better pack than I expected. It has rather good eyecandy, though there were some layer problems at points, and some of the tile choice seemed odd. The pack had some problems with enemy placement as well, because sometimes the enemies didn’t move. A certain maze puzzle was used quite a lot, but it didn’t really bother me. The boss battles were quite well done, and the music choice was very good. I didn’t manage to get the secret level, but it is overall a rather easy levelpack (on easy, haven’t tried hard.)

    Overall:
    Good, and I’d download it, but it’s over pretty fast. Even so, it deserves a place on the good list. 7/10

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    Cobra NF 10 Jul 2009, 11:12 (edited 16 Jun 11, 19:34)

    9Recommended:

    EYECANDY

    eyecandy is very good!

    ENEMIES

    well-placed and you put in a bunch.

    BG

    BG was really good…it really fit the lvls.

    DR

    yes!

    SINGLE PLAYER

    Great for a single player lvl!

    LAYERS

    layers were great!,i liked the stuff u put in layer 3,5,and 2

    MUSIC

    Very good for the lvl.

    OVERALL

    9.2

    Very good work!..Keep it up.

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    Janus aka Jahari 30 Aug 2007, 07:24

    This was a pretty decent mini-pack. Several things could have been better, but I was satisfied. In the future, you should:

    - Reward the player for getting through areas. It was sort of puzzle after puzzle with no break.

    - Add more eyecandy. A level that appears to have one color is very lame. I’m referring to the cave levels. The one using 7th lava Fall was fine.

    - Use annoying stuff sparingly. A lot of the puzzles were really good, but the mazes covered by layer 3 got old after a while. There were also areas with spikes where you couldn’t get through without getting hurt (unless that was your intention =p).

    Otherwise, I liked it.

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