Recent reviews by Fafwn

I can't express my feelings for this game, it has a perfect mix of everything that overall, makes this one of my favourite games I have ever come across.
There are many features to a game that can be implemented to craft a perfect game and I think this game takes those elements and makes it into a price worthy platformer.

For a start, and most importantly, the gameplay. On the surface, the controlls look very simple and the action also looks quite simple and basic which is true in the earlier parts of the game but, as the game progresses, the intensity of merging moves learnt throughout the game into dodging the bullet hell the bosses throw at you makes the game very challenging yet still viable to play.
The thought processes of using slower but more rewarding melee moves or faster but less damaging projectiles, healing items and bombs turns this game from a simple bullet hell platformer into a much more complex yet still managable game to enjoy and play.
The difficulty however, can be very challanging at the end-game which is understandable for it being th final boss. That is why the importance of difficulty settings is good for this game because it appeals to more than just skilled players but also the lesser experienced players too with an option to decrease the difficulty at any point which I think is vital.
I would say the gameplay is split into three parts, discovering new parts of the map, finding skills and upgrades, and the boss fights. The map discovery sections are pretty self explanatory but is important and done well in this game because of the interactivity of the maps and the challenges it puts before you, rather than being levels you can simply fly through without any reward. This makes the lesser intense parts of the game still interesting and interactive which many other games seem to lack. Secondly, the finding of skills and upgrades. This part of the game is vital for many player for without them, you will find it very hard to pass though some of the later bosses. This follows the same formule as the map discovery sections because it doesn't send you though a hard tresure hunt without any rewards or purpose that feels stuck in but instead, makes it a high reward and fun journy to the final upgrade. Also, a small feature is the attention to the players level and the level of the enemies of the area. The upgrades you find in the area seem to correlate with the levels of the enemies which again is attention to the reward you get for finding these upgrades. Finally, and the most fun part of the game is the boss battles that are present at the end of each "level" per say and aren't your usual boss battle. These boss battles focus primarily on you and the boss where you need to stratagise your attacks in an attempt to deal as much damage as you can and take the least damage possible until you defeat them. The attack patterns are very inventive and unique which means you rarely see any repeats which makes each new boss a new experience for the user. Another small feature is the use of the ranks in the boss battles that increases up to max depending on your performance throughout the battle. Rather than the rank simply being a title present in your records (,while still important because it drives the player to do even better to get max rank), it has a dual funciton of increasing the players attack by up to %40 at a time which rewards the player for doing well in the battle, usually do to the upgrades collected in the previous area. The final thing gameplay I feel is vital to mention is the continue buffs you are presented with when you die multiple times. Rather than getting to a level and repetitively dying over and over again and getting frustrated, the game gives you the option to have buffs that increase various stats and results in you staying alive long enough to pass the harder sections. This is just a potential helping hand to assist the user, just incase.
These features is what makes the gameplay unique and different to your usual game which definetly seperates it from other games.

Gameplay aside, the story. While the story of the game is not the best out there, it is still enough to give the game a premise to work off and form a game around which it does very well. The game is basically split into two halves, the first half is the easier section, working on getting skills and upgrading stats to tackle the harder bosses in the game, and the second half is less focused on the working of skills and upgrades and rather focuses on the intensity and implementing these skills against more challanging bosses.
The second half acts as a post-main game section that still works off the first half which is more for the experienced players to get a "second shot" at some more challanging gameplay while giving the lesser able players a place to stop and more or less, finish the game.
This again gives you every oppotunity possible to play the game to your preference and skill level rather than a pre-set path and difficulty which would usually drive away most players.
The story itself is moderatly long giving the player lots to do and play for, taking me up to 30 hours just to do the non-dlc story with much more to offer with the dlc options given to you. This means that this game will last you longer than the usual game that can be finished in one sitting which shows that real thought has gone into making this game what is it.

Now another important yet small feature that I think the creators of Rabi-Ribi have done well is the controlls. I played with a controller so I can't make any comments on the ease of the keybindings, but the controlls regardless are very simple and easy to grasp with the given option to change the bindings to more closely suit your preferences which makes you feel a lot less trapped with how the developers want you to play the game but rather how the player themselves wants to play the game.

Now finally, the last important part that feel meeds to be mentioned is the music. In some cases, the music can be the make or break feature of a game, the feature that livens up a battle and overall emphisises the tone of specific scenes. Rabi-Ribi seems to handle this quite well with an extensive range of boss music that really makes you feel part of the boss battles and I belive that some of the music included in the boss battles are some of the best boss music out there. It fires you up for the upcoming battle. There isn't much else to say about the catchy tunes in this game, it is one of the smallest features that have the greatest effect on the game.

The only negative things about this game is the difficulty of some of the early game enemies. Sometimes they can be too hard to defeat and continue which is vital doesn't happen in the early sections of the game where the player needs to learn how to play the game but this was only present with a select few enemies and even then, it disappeared later on in the game.
Another negative that may arise from some players is the duration of the boss battles. While I personally had no problem with this, some of the boss battles can be a bit lengthy such as the final battle for example which takes up to 30 minutes of constant playing and dodging to complete which can be viewed as quite ridiculous but can be seen, especially in my eyes as a higher reward when you finally come across defeating the boss.

I would personally highly reccomend this game if you are up to a complex, cute and challenging bullet hell platformer and the price is worth what you get. I really enjoyed playing this game and I am up to playing it again in the near future.

I have got to admit, this game is absolutly beautiful. I have played the story so many times; I'm pretty sure I don't have a life

Pros:

• Amazing animations
  
• Music is beautiful
  
• Gameplay and fighting mechanics are smooth

The list continues, there are so many positives about this game.

Cons:

• Bit short (isn't really a con, I could play this game 100 times and not get bored)
  
• The game is a ridiculously hard nearer the start but isn't a problem as the game goes on

There aren't many cons because the game is just so good!
I would highly recommend this game, especially if you like the challange!

This game is pretty awesome, got to admit, but this game is quite hard and will take a long time to complete. If you like the challange of really hard platformers, then this is the game for you.
I love this game.