Archive: 1 post

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.....wow. Long level is looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong. I apologize AoC, originally I was planning to write up a cliffsnotes styled summary of your stage but that would involve playing the level again, an action that quite frankly I don't have the energy to invest into again after playing the level 1.8 times already......with 2 players (I say 1.8 due to the fact that the level literally broke before the last boss and we had to restart). So, let it be known that I am now spending about 30-40 minutes writing a review for a level that I have now already spent a good solid hour on already. Anyways, Oculynth is a level about a special temple that no one is allowed to enter and is probably full of marvelous treasure, so being the brave little sackboy that you are you decide it is in your favor to brave the long LONG trek to discover an amazing wonderful temple full of vastly riches and yadda yadda you know what I think I'm just gonna start the critical analysis right away. One thing became abundantly clear to me playing through this level: the author has a certain fetish for both sponge and electricity, though not usually mixed together in the standard kinky fashion but alternating between the 2 like putting 2 different color Jenga sets together. One minute you'll be leaping and hopping around electric traps and the like, the next minute you'll be hoisting your sacking body up through sponge launching mechanisms that would even give NASA astronauts a run for their lunch. Now now, I'm not gonna keep bashing the level for an entire periodical, otherwise I might transform into either Roeper or Ebert. The level did have a few notable pluses, like specifically the puzzles that riddled the stage were all definitely nicely created and thought out quite well and while being occasionally finicky it never really stopped me from having a good laugh at the whole spectacle. Gameplay wise, there isn't much to rave about. It's your standard "run and jump" scenario where you find yourself always trying to get to that next platform to proceed, and are ultimately rewarded by even more platforms. As far as what makes the stage stand out more than anything I'm sad to say the only truly lasting effect is the sheer length of the level, and by length try to imagine the word being made out of water and able to turn the Grand Canyon into the next major Ocean. The length of the level is somewhere in between 18-30 minutes depending on how skilled you are at "sackforming" and obviously how few times you decide to mistake the endless lightning platforms for candy, and that's considerably long by the standards of LBP where the average level is anywhere between 3-7 minutes long, usually around 15 tops. Needless to say you definitely come out of the level knowing that you just played something filling, but that thing you confused for a full course dinner was actually just an overabundance of the same fast food shoved haplessly down your throat. Yeah the level is long, but so much of the level also feels like it repeats itself. Not literally of course, every jump is entirely different and every puzzle tweaked in some manner, but the level as a whole just feels a bit....repetitive. I should also point out that towards the second half of the level, you will begin to notice a very tight slant in difficulty. The game decides later on that being able to reach the sacred temple just wouldn't be any fun without throwing about a billion volts of glass platforms in your direction, and the concentration of electricity seems to simply pile up over time at a frightening rate similar to the World's landfills and trash piles. When I finally got to the boss (whom is literally called the "Oculynth" by the way), I felt as if I was playing "I wanna be the guy" all over again. When you finally beat the stage, you make it into the sacred temple which is essentially just a collection of all the different sponge building materials in the game thrown into one stage. Overall, the level is good but not great, and LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG. Christ, this level makes the distance to Saturn seem reachable. If you happen to like lengthy, meaty levels full of platforming shenanigans, this level is great for you. If you don't have about 20 minutes to spare, play something else. Final Score: 7.0 / 10 Long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, LONG level. At the very least, you don't ever feel as if the level doesn't have enough content. On a side note, what is an Oculynth anyways?

2009-06-05 07:23:00 Author: Shining Aquas Posts: 353

Posts: 1077139    Threads: 69970    Members: 9661    Archive-Date: 2019-01-19

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