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four souls's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Enjoyment | #2 | 4.286 | 4.286 |
| Metroidvania | #2 | 4.286 | 4.286 |
| Overall | #3 | 3.957 | 3.957 |
| Execution | #4 | 3.929 | 3.929 |
| Sensory | #4 | 3.929 | 3.929 |
| Relevance to the theme | #8 | 3.357 | 3.357 |
Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Theme interpretation and application
IDK man I got lost in the way
Limitation incorporation
Lighthop bunny, they're in the first area of the game.
Team/Developer
emzodaiki, isaac
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Comments
Loved this! The upgrades are really fun, and the last unlock felt like a nice reward for playing through most of the game. Though I wonder if it would had been better to have all transformations on different buttons to not make the rabbit/ant switch harder when unlocking more.
I liked the world. The NPCs were fun and the puzzle pieces were a good thing to collect. The areas felt differnent from each other with some really cool backgrounds! Also, the music was great. It was one of my favourite parts of the game.
Maybe my favorite entry so far, a really neat and atmospheric game that invokes a unique sense of nostalgia. It might've been simple in terms of gameplay, but I feel like it succeeded at pretty much everything it was trying to achieve. Felt super quick to navigate and get through even while having so much content, too!
Overall, the art style and music are top notch, and I loved all the different NPCs. I especially liked the visuals and ambience in the rainy area, although the sound got a bit glitchy there at times. The distant vocals (animal noises?) were a great touch, though!
The controls felt super tight and responsible, especially as the bunny. I found it really funny because the heavy landing sound and screen shake makes it look like they weigh a ton. Loved how fast all the characters move, too!
I think my only minor complaint (aside from the occasionally glitchy sounds) was that it felt like finding the fish transformation actually took away some of my movement options, since before that, I used to be able to jump at a wall as a bunny and quickly turn into a spider to latch on to it. With the fish, I could no longer do that due to fish appearing after the bunny and the transformation cooldown. Of course, none of this was a problem after getting the bird form.
The level was a bit on the big and empty side, but I feel like the fast movement speed of the player more than made up for it, and in this case, the emptiness actually contributed a lot to the atmosphere. Once I had all the transformations, it felt like it only took a few minutes to find all the puzzle pieces, even with some of them being quite far off the beaten path.
I'm not sure if there was an ending beyond completing all four paintings (which were all super cool and lovely, by the way), but either way, it felt satisfying enough to me and overall I had a great time playing. All in all, incredible job!
Edit: Okay, after looking at the comments, I did manage to find the secret room and enter the code! I did think it was weird how tight the jump to get over that little ledge was, but I never thought to try pressing Down on the little fence things. The ending room was neat, but I think to me, finding all the painting pieces was still the "true" ending. :)
I had a lot of fun with the game and THE MUSIC WAS SO GOOD. the underground theme was so plonky it ruled. loved the color choices in the stages so much. loved the platforming, i enjoyed swapping to the ant form to grab walls. fish is fun, but I ultimately didnt finish the game because the transformation controls with 2 forms while jumping felt a bit clumsy. real solid entry!!!
Firstly its a great looking game when there is no extra sprites on screen i think you should have committed to not having sprites which are big like the home feels out of place and its insides are weird too like the rest of the game is so visually beautiful but these just break the thing that makes each area beautiful
Now about the painting collectables : THEY MAKE NO SENSE tbh i couldnt wrap my head around it and its not clear or satisfying to collect them personally found out they had a use cause someone said it has something to do with painting in the home and said for the ending find all of them which i would might have done but i just broke the game (More on this abit later )
Platforming of the game feels weird like how is a normal person just suppose to know you can wall cling to top corner then go off and switch and then press jump 3 times plus you mentioned "Its probably intended" and this is the part which makes no sense cause its not something a normal person trys after unlocking an ability i think if this was completely optional then it would have been something i would have praised but in this case its not a great implementation tbh
The world design is great ngl i loved the fact that there are so many different areas personally loved exploring around and the effects were great too
Movement was sometimes meh , like the fish is too slippery the main form is a bit too but this one is passable . Other than that small gripe its a very fluid and fun playing game
Music was great (
Have nothing to say here)Controls were bad ngl like arrow zcv like why not zxc and the awsd and mouse work to some degree so like you could have just given awsd and jkl or something
Now the big one : THE BUG I FOUND
Here i am stuck inside the wall also this is done cause i got so used to controls that i managed to to do multiple rooms in a couple sec and then boom got stuck (btw all things unlocked by this point )
Overall a fine game i think it would have been an amazing game if its ending and intro were not rushed (Assuming the start home part and having no ending is cause of time stuff )Also if i sound rude here in any way then sorry I was just being 100 % honest
Thanks for playing and leaving feedback. First off I want to say that just because you're being honest it doesn't mean you're not being rude, you can be both at the same time. Like instead of saying the controls were straight ass, you could've just omitted that part and it still would've gotten the point across, I'm just saying that you should maybe think a bit before writing things like that.
Now about your other critiques. I think all of them just stem from you not engaging with the game. Which is fine, people play games differently, but if you're going to write a review for the developer, then maybe engage with the game?
I think it is pretty obvious that the puzzle pieces are tied to the paintings, unless you straight up skipped some rooms and didn't bother interacting with npc's. In your house there are colored frames that you can interact with, and when playing the game you find colored puzzle pieces. Even if you're saying it's not obvious they're connected, if you were just a little bit curious you'd collect a few and return home to see that some frames have been filled in.
As for the platforming, I don't understand why you think it wasn't intended, and how a normal person wouldn't be able to figure it out, when you literally figured it out by yourself? Before that, there are various sections that demand that same interaction from you, of switching constantly between characters, why would that specific section be different and unintended?
As for the ending, maybe if you bothered to interact with the game you'd know that there is one.
If you are going to review a game, please give a fair chance, don't just mindlessly play through it like a chore, because it is not. If you don't want to play the game, then don't review it, just leave your rating and be done with it, your review won't be useful.
i mean after learning the fact the puzzle piece had a purpose i tried playing to get them but got stuck so i cant progress further and btw i interacted with each npc and painting and nothing seem to make sense to me honestly the puzzle piece implementation felt rushed like compared to other parts of the game and about the ass line my bad ii was frustrated by that point but will keep that in mind in future and about the platforming no a normal person wont understand it we are a metroidvania folks we know what the game might expect but a normal person doesnt i honestly just knew it the second i got it was gonna be my wall jump but i doubt someone who is not into platformer or not too into game design wouldnt know it right off the bat and about playing it as a chore if i really didnt care i would spend an hour playing and listening to the game and take my time and experience the beauty of the game i might have not 100 % it but i did play lots of it
I really liked this! (>v<)
It was really fun seeing all the different environments, you really did well with the art's evocativeness (the room labels in the top-left did distract from it a bit though). Also, the npcs were funny. :D
I wish that the transformation controls were nicer though. Having them be a wheel on C/V feels tricky to get to the one I want. Maybe having them be X/C/V each leading to a specific transformation, and pressing again to un-transform? I think that's like how Symphony of the Night did it, though that was still a little confusing to remember. :/
The music is also great, very atmospheric.
Is there anything to do after getting all the puzzle pieces? I got them, but nothing showed up to say "this is the end of the game". All that's there is a mysterious mirror that speaks to me in numbers.
Thanks for playing and for the feedback. The top-left room name thing really was a bad call probably, if I were to change the game today I'd make it appear upon entering and fade away after a few seconds. As for the transformation controls, the mechanic actually was inspired by symphony of the night, but I guess I should've replayed it since you're the second person to point out how weird they feel.
As for ending the game, the mirror numbers are a code, there is a secret (it was supposed to NOT be secret, but I messed up and no one can find it apparently) room where you can input the code. So you can actually beat the game very early on, as soon as you reach the surface, as long as you know the code and enter the room. The puzzle piece drawings were just supposed to be small hints to that, but they're really not very useful.
Oh I found it now! I didn't realize that bit of the environment was actually a door/entrance you press down for. :o
Cool game! o/
I think the transformations is a super interesting direction to go with for Metroidvania upgrades. Giving each form their own move style makes them feel super unique and valuable by itself, and when you put them together (besides the bird being better than the rabbit and bug) you get this beautiful whole.
The only real criticism I would give is that a lot of rooms have not a lot of things (I personally prefer the other way around, when there are a lot of things in not a lot of rooms, but the design style is up to you). This is especially apparent in the fish sewer area (not the general underwater area, that one was also a little empty but kind of cool too), which contains two straight lines of rooms with literally nothing in them (except maybe a puzzle piece). Although at the same time I think the emptiness does lead to an emphasis on atmosphere and maybe that journey theme? So it's not all a bad thing.
Still, I think this is a good entry, with great atmosphere, visual colors, and movement. My personal favorite area was the rainy town. I'm excited for what you will make next!
Nice atmosphere! I was amazed at how much there was to explore. I got stuck finding the hidden room.
really cool game! found everything but one white puzzle piece (though I was only able to find the final room thanks to the hint in the comments here). the minimalist visuals are really nice and appealing, and i like the central character switching mechanic, though i definitely feel like it was at its best initially when it was just the bunny and spider. you get a lot of fun mid-air switching shenaniganry with those two that never really comes back later, and i started getting mixed up about which button would transform me into what once there were more than two forms. on that note i usually rest my hand on zxc with arrow key controls so having to press v just as often as c felt awkward. considering x wasn't used for anything i don't see why it couldn't just use x and c to cycle transformations instead.
getting the bird felt like it kind of made the other transformations fully obsolete which was a bit eh as it removed the main gimmick of the gameplay up to that point, though i do applaud you for actually having a significant amount of gameplay using the infinite flight unlike lighthop making it a lazy postgame reward x) the little puzzle to get into the final room was also pretty neat and wrapped things up nicely.
also despite the fact that you couldn't think of anything for the theme interpretation this was maybe the most on theme feeling game i've played yet. something about the structure of the game makes it feel extra like a journey despite any lack of overt theming to that effect.
Thank you for taking the time to write a detailed review and beating the game, I think you're the third person to ever beat the game. The C/V control scheme was an oversight from me, originally I was intending to have every character use Z/X for special abiltiies, but that got discarded and the rest of the controls never changed.
As for the bird, I planned it to be like a reward for playing up to that point, I wanted it to feel like you had the freedom to go wherever you wanted since at that point you can already beat the game. (you have all characters and can get the full code)
I still don't know how to make a game themed around journey, though I'm glad you think it fits. Maybe banging my head against a wall for the first two weeks influenced me subcontiously?
just beat the game! The progression and the feeling of power increase as you unlock more movement options felt amazing! The NPCs were hilarious and really added a lot of charm to the game. You know it's a good game when you are disappointed that it's over. Congratulations Emzo!
PS: There's a hidden room in this screenshot that is required for progression. Good luck!
Damn, this is so cool!!!! The music is so great, the abilities feel really fun and the world was really well crafted!
I don't know if this is intended or not but the ability to switch between the animals in midair allows for some cool sequence breaking stuff like climbing up the wall as the ant, then switching to the rabbit to double jump around an overhang, then switch back to the ant to cling onto the overhang
Also in particular I want to praise the movement and the triple jump, it feels so juicy!!
Well done! Really fun game!
Thank you so much! The music is definitely the best part of the game, I have to thank the musician a lot for that. Your words mean a lot, as I am an admirer of your work, I'm really happy you liked something I partially made. As for the ability to switch midair, it is very much intended and required for you to advance in a lot of sections, it is just something I found while playtesting and decided to make a feature. The time between switches was added later on, because you could fly by switching repeatedly to the bunny and double jumping.
Great game! Lovely graphics and the music reminded me a lot of A Short Hike. There's so much content, and it's a super awesome experience all around. Well done!
This game is amazing. The combination of visuals and music makes for an experience that feels really meaningful, it almost has a meditative quality to it. The game does a lot with very few, very simple elements, I really like it. Bravo!
Let's goooo first time playing it! The triple jump felt really good!
Did you add a reference to any of the elements that are part of the museum in your game? And if so, could you edit your submission field to reflect it? No changes could lead to disqualification.
sorry i got nervous when uploading. how do i edit this? but yeah I used the lighthop bunny sprite.
There is an "edit submission" button on the submission page you can use.