Gunmetal Arcadia Zero

RIP Humble Games.

For something largely developed by one person, this does a decent enough job working within its considerable limits to deliver a solid if unremarkable product. The plot and gameplay are genre basic, the music is simple and repetitive, and the game can be beaten in just a couple hours. But in the realm of indie publishing, these features are more to be commended than held against it. It's no Shovel Knight or The Messenger, but it's not trying to be, and keeping those expectations low was the right decision. If you can get it on sale it's the perfect use of an afternoon.

A short, straightforward platformer with responsive controls, in which an adventuresome city elf seeks to stop a mutant queen from birthing monsters. Nothing earth-shattering, but a great way to reopen my pre-work game & tea series. Aside from tight jumping (your falls? your fault!), it is notable for a pretty dang magical CRT filter.

(Actually a level-designed prequel to a roguelike, which I have but haven't played yet.)

A near-perfect recreation of NES games, however this is not necessarily always a good thing.

Pros:
+ Good spritework and chiptune music
+ Precise controls
+ Several secrets and hidden areas

Cons:
- Several weapons and subweapons are mostly useless
- Most items are costly but not really useful or relevant
- Lame plot and characters
- No point in choosing a faction despite it being part of the plot

I understand that this is only a preview of a larger game, but in itself, it's just not that great and doesn't make you interested in main title.

Short and not terribly interesting. Go play this dev's "you have to win the game" or "super win the game". Those are quite good.

Look, I'm sorry. I gave the game a chance, and that's all I'll give this game.
I do like the "Win the Game" series from this same developer, much like some of the other reviewers here.

I will also agree that this game isn't up to the same quality standards as his other works, and this is most certainly not worth the $6 price tag. It's missing some much-needed polish to make this fun to play, unlike something akin to Zelda 2, to which this game takes inspiration from.

I do like Zelda 2, contrary to some, but this doesn't really fulfill the same things Zelda 2 does/did/aspired to be. I see the potential, but it is not utilized here. This does not make me want to purchase the full Gunmetal Arcadia, and I am rather disappointed in that.

If the game felt more fun to play, or perhaps wasn't as uninspired, I might have a different outlook. I respect the developer for trying, but I would not recommend giving this a go. If you want to see what he can do, go play Super Win the Game. It's far superior by the same man, and your money is much better spent with that, than this.

Gunmetal Arcadia Zero is a nice little throwback sidescroller (be sure to put the graphics into CRT mode!) that plays just like a classic NES game.
...buuuuut it's incredibly short for the price. You can finish the game and 90% all the achievements in 2 hours.
It's really only worth buying if it's on sale and you want the mini-prequel to Gunmetal Arcadia. Otherwise, your money may be better spent elsewhere (like, for example, Gunmetal Arcadia).

DISCLAIMER: This is a first impressions review, and NOT a full review

Gunmetal Arcadia Zero is a game developed and published by Minor Key Games

The game offers some nice graphics, although some ugly glitches here and there, it is pleasant all the same

The game does suffer with some repetitiveness at certain areas of the game but a fun game nonetheless

Gunmetal Arcadia Zero overall, however, is a fun game to play, yet sometimes repetitive and it does get boring and tedious if being played for a long time, but is a great little platformer game to play in short bursts!

RECOMMENDED :)

REVIEW SOURCES:
[list]
[*] None

Sure, the game is cute... the ingame graphics are nice quality NES-style with good use of black space... the play control is solid... there's nothing really bad, per se, to say about any of it.

However... with issues such as the honestly quite terrible cutscene art and design of the main characters, the era-accurate but low-effort soundtrack (very short tracks with no catchy melody), brevity of the game with a complete lack of difficulty throughout, mostly-pointless optional upgrades and treasure, odd balance such as a huge variety of weapons that are far too similar with later tiers barely feeling stronger if at all, shops every 2 steps, and story as basic as they come despite attempts at worldbuilding.. I can't really reccommend this.

It's not bad, but there's simply nothing here of note.

*edit* ... Upon checking out the "full version" of Gunmetal Arcadia, this makes more sense. It's like a demo that shows you the some of the kinds of enemies, bosses, abilities and weapons you'll use in that game. But even still, as a standalone, separate game being sold for $6, this one simply isn't worth it. Just get the real game instead.

Only NES kids will remember.

All in all this is quite the throwback to Zelda 2, Fanaxdu, Castlevanias and similar games back in those days, and the game does it well. The music is wonderful and the game isn't TOO hard or OVERLY cheap (as much as I hate 1 hit kill spikes, they aren't too plentiful).

It's short but it's pretty much the length of an NES game in which most of those you can finish in an hour or so. Got it on sale and I don't regret it.

It really hurts to give this a negative review because I love this dev's "win the game" series so much - I consider them among my favourite games of all times.
This game, Gunmetal Arcadia Zero, however, I just isn't nearly up to his standard. I'm used to level design from this dev so tight it crackles, with a sophisticated, interwoven metroidvania layout and satisfying and at times hard-as-nails platforming. This game, in contrast, is as linear as it gets, with simplistic and boring level design. The mechanics, largely borrowed from one of my other favourite games Zelda II, aren't given much room and feel under-utilised.
The game is very short, the lives mechanic is uneccessary and annoying, there's few secrets and what secrets there are are easy to find and contain nothing interesting.
Sorry Mr. Pittman. I really hope Gunmetal Arcadia is better...

100 minutes of fantastic gameplay. Hitboxes are well placed and speed is decent. My only gripe was that the one time I game over'd and it had me load my save, I lost half my money. Not sure if glitch or intended, or maybe I'm crazy. Regardless, I'm looking forward to playing it again, as well as replaying it a tonne in speedrun mode.

I'm probably going to get some flak for this, but I'm probably in a group that just "doesn't get it".

Graphics

Pretty darn okay. It's a blatant 8-bit reference right back to Zelda 2, Faxanadu and similar games, but slightly simplifed from even that. All characters have a single palette (blue, orange, green, red etc) and while this is a bit bland, it makes enemies and characters stand out great from the background. You never get surprised by an enemy out of nowhere (aside from sudden spawns outside screen while you are running) which is good. I'd say for the style they went for it's an a-ok for me.

Sounds

Really good. Nice 8-bit style soundtrack with some really memorable tunes. Extremely well done. Only annoyance is that it keeps changing track everytime you go through a door (and you do that *a lot*) so it starts to feel very disjointed after a while.

Gameplay

Bog standard 8-bit platformer. Gives you some variety in that you can use different styled weapons, but I really never saw much use it using anything but the giant axe, as splatting everything in 1-2 hits is superiour (although not as fun) as going nuts with a dagger. The ranged spark weapon sounds like a great idea, but without massive investment in ammo, it's pretty darn poo. Also you get stuck with a sword in the end anyway.

Combat is about as simple as it gets, and with the very limited air control you have (even after the item that increases your air control) you can't do many fancy maneuvers so the up- and down-strike ends up barely ever being used in favor of just blindly mashing attack straight forward.

Subweapons are a nice addition, but generally never really come into play, aside from the upwards-spear type of weapon to clear sections where you need to move upwards, or to remove spitting enemies.

Platforming is sorta solid with very few gripes. There are occasions of you falling through platforms if you land at their edge. The sprite makes it looks like you would hit it, but you'll fall through as your hitbox is smaller than the sprite gives the impression of. There are multiple cases of areas where you will fall down without options to return, so even if you spot a secret area you cannot go back to seek it out, leading to you having to either die or replay the game to get back to that area. Not ideal.

Bosses

Lots of these around, and almost every single one of them walk straight towards you and you can just mash attack to win easily. A few (like the ocular thing and the pink grub) requires some strategy, but beyond that they're a matter of spam attack, dodge the occasional attack.

Story

Probably the most forgettable part about this game. Ultra-generic village-dude gets off on adventure, gets told off by friends that are "more cool" than him, ends up saving the world. I do appreciate that they changed the age old "your father's sword" and "your brother" with mother and sister. It's a welcome variety, but no less generic and bland. It's also hilariously short. I played through this game in less than two hours. I mean it wasn't expensive or anything but holy crap that's ... *really* short .

Do I recommend this?

Eeeh maybe. If you're a hardcore fan of 8-bit style platformers this is not a bad two hours to throw away. At €6 it may just be worth it as it's cheaper than going to the movies. But overall I was left with a strong sense of "meh" after having finished it. There is nothing that makes me want to go back and play it again as the gameplay certainly wasn't good enough to warrant a replay.

My personal opinion is that it's far too generic and "lowest common denominator" as far as gameplay goes to be worth spending your time on. It's not a bad game, it's just incredibly generic.

This game is highly recommended, while it does have it's pitfalls.

Many of the criticisms come from it being very short, which in this games case, is absolutely fine. It makes for a wonderful speed game, and a nice throwback to 8-bit side-scrollers. The action is decent, and for the most part, the game is extremely easy.

This is the biggest problem.

Of the 6 worlds, 5 of them are an absolute cakewalk. There is very little danger, and the "Lives" system is pretty much meaningless. However, the 6th world is full of instant deathtraps, and the checkpoint system spread much too thin. While I beat the first 90% of the game in roughly an hour (going very slowly. Talking to everyone, checking every nook and cranny for secrets) the last level took me another 30 minutes. It is a short level, but there are so many cheap deaths. If I ever see that first screen again, I am going to puke.

The game is lovely, it has so many great qualities, just the last level is absolutely awful.

This is a very slight 'yes'. I just have a hard time justifying $5+ for <2 hours of game. The controls were pretty snappy but most of the secrets/tricky platforming just gave money, which didn't really seem terribly required or important, save for one or two weapon upgrades, and that's it. Didn't see much of any reason to use or try different weapons, nor any particular use to the jump upgrades at all.

The aesthetic was decently retro, pretty cute soundtrack, but some of the 'cutscene' type pictures were kinda weirdly awful, lots of bad aliasing that didn't mimic the 'retro' style at all but just looked.. wonky. All in all, on sale for a couple bucks, it could be worth an hour and change, but there's not much more than that to it.

Also, the bosses are WAY easy. Super simple patterns, easy to avoid, and the infamous jump-then-downwards-sword-stab-bounce makes you pretty much invincible and slays most bosses with ease. Pretty big let down there on bosses.

Freaking YES I recommend this game.

Minor Key Games have successfully ported an old, obscure, but fun NES game to Steam, and we need more of them! Great port too, with lots of options to simulate the old CRT feel, with only the main menu and end credits having a modernized look for some reason. Maybe some of the old code was damaged? Bah, semantics. This 1980's action adventure is still awesome, and I'm glad I finally got a chance to play it! Seriously, like, I couldn't find this game anywhere... never seen it in a retro store, or on ebay or amazon. I wonder why that is, and why I never heard of it until about a year ago? Was it a rare game or something? Well, regardless, this is definitely an 8-bit gem, and I'm glad they brought it to Steam so I don't have to pay like $50 for an old NES cartridge!

What? You say this is a new game made in a retro aesthetic? Bah, LIES! It's TOO authentic to be a new game! Most new indie games that do that tend to screw up the graphics or music or something so it doesn't feel true to the old tech. Or maybe they put in stupid references. This game doesn't do any of that, it gets things right! This feels authentic! It must be an actual NES game! IT MUST BE!!!! LALALALALALA *puts fingers in ears* I'M NOT LISTENING!

PROS:
Great physics, responsive gameplay, rewarding, mild exploration, nice CRT emulation, just enough difficulty and not too grindy.

NEUTRALS:
Average artwork, average music, unclear class system and unnecessary class merchants system.

CONS:
Menu UI is out of place and a weak theme.

It's actually a decent game that REALLY plays on that Nostalgia note that I like. Sometimes the music is either decent or annoying because it has such a short loop, kinda like the NES games back in that era. I only have one problem, and it's a glaring one. Sometimes when you're trying to jump from platform to platform, you tend to hold UP and whichever direction you're facing and it causes your character to STOP DEAD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE JUMP AND FALL!! I hope the programmers please fix this glaring platforming issue.

i love this game kero ,it's like zelda 2 exept it doesnt suck.......and it's not zelda 2

that old 8-bit feel is all in it's glory the gameplay is smooth and good , it's good stuff very good stuff


i give it 10 keros out of 10

Mostly Castlevania, with a little Zelda 2 thrown in. Great aesthetic, good music, an interesting setting. The last level has some obnoxious jumps, but overall it's a pretty good couple hours.

Feels like an old school 2d action game. A lot like The Adventure of Link, but not nearly as brutal. Lots of different weapons and some secondary weapons Ninja Gaiden style. Also the CRT simulator from Super Win The Game is back, and it really completes the retro feel.

Great game, will totally tide you over until Gunmetal Arcadia comes out.