I haven't personally played author's previous hacks, but I have seen this and I am happy to see him do his own original project, still carrying the brand style to it.
It's just such a cool Deltarune-like with Sonic inspiration that runs on actual Sega Mega Driver Genesis. The style is an interesting mix of Genesis and MS-DOS CGA at times, with a very chunky interface to it. And it's being done by someone who is very well-versed with Sega hardware, giving me pleasure of studying visuals, looking at all the parallax layers. I especially liked the small intro room, very fancy part. And the world has a dreamy feel sensation to it, even if I am still not sure how "ads" fit into setting.
Beans.
The Deltarune inspiration is heavily placed in both humor and gameplay. But it has funny animals. And funny asshole animals. And soft paws. Very good. Maybe a bit too much funny asshole animals in Chapter 0, could use some positive/cheerful interaction early. But I still giggled a bunch at author's own humor, a lot, in this alien world. Besides, it's punk and cool and cute at the same time. There are even talking sounds that sound a bit musical instead of a single note, albeit some are way too rough for my ears. But the voice-like noises are great, kitty ones.
Gosh, I do enjoy that funny asshole funny animal in particular that hangs out with you and the way he interacted with HUD. And I was impressed by a short dedicated 2D platforming section that you enter and exit smoothly. The way hero kept velocity inbetween delivered a united world sensation.
Healthy Paws!
There are Undertale like battles that you encounter in overworld, with enemies going way too fast to escape. It's a good experiment. Take UT and use boss battle platforming instead of shmup. Neat.
But I did get sensation after few battles that they may become more repetitive than compared to UT/DR. First, there is lack of overarching meta story for battles. Then, there are no items and I think that enemies could bunch up together into group. Author will have to solve game design problems for more long-term gameplay of the full game.
Btw, characters falling into sky at the end of a turn is neat, those stages really give dreamy sensation.
I also felt that there is some roughness in tutorial and controls, as I was often confused, but thankfully environments were safe enough to figure out things that I didn't understood fully, like Sono thingie. Game uses three buttons but HUD shows actions of only two, plus it somehow doesn't quite help me unless I pay attention. I also feel that controls of different sections don't quite transition into each other as smoothly as they could.
Oh and of course the sprite work of the game is really great, silly me not yet paying attention to the art of art style. It's slightly Genesis fan-hack messy in style however and could use some certain focus. But we will see in the full game, I do like the sensation of wonder that title screen has and the intro stage.
I also feel that music has a bit of "Sonic fan hack" issue where it "just sounds Genesis" without being unique or catchy like many official Genesis games. But we will see in long-term.
It also lacks some drama in order to become Deltarune like. Which is fine if full game will be more lighthearted comedy of funny animals. It's also a bit short but chapter 0, is ok. I do feel that demo couls have ended on a more exciting moment or a hook, which is issue with many indies. So far the only hook I have is "I wonder what queen looks like", the finding out why Queen called us seems like a mundane thing.
I finally realized Sand Castle pun while writing. Nice. Cute A joke at a start. Nice cameos. Nice mouse. Nice all. B button should work while you are already moving, imo. Paw health best thing. When game switched to end screen, there is a chest visible during transition for a frame, I now wonder about it constantly.
funny animals/10
"SoNiC rOmHaCk" my butt, this is pretty much original game, I am suing. /hj
