Gargoyles for Genesis
Review #4218
Gargoyles
Demons Crest? Is that you?
Gameplay
Awkward movement. It's fast but laggy or maybe it's a momentum/animation problem.
Part of it is that your sprite is really wide so it's hard to tell When you're going to grab something or if you're close enough to strike an enemy. When you move you kind of move from tile to tile rather than pixel by pixel. So when you want to make a small adjustment moving towards an enemy, you wind up walking right into him instead. This makes combat difficult but platforming especially challenging.
The movement tech itself is kind of interesting. You have a double jump but it's awkward to use because of the lag. You can also grab and crawl up. Ledges and you have a slash attack or a jump and downward thrust.
Enemies take a lot of hits to kill and can sometimes attack even while being damaged so you wind up taking a lot of hits from them.
I think the gameplay could have been really good with a bit more refinement.
Level Design
I only played two levels and they were overly long and recycled the same movement over and over in vertical and then horizontal segments. The vertical segments were the most difficult because of the laggy and awkward double jump feature.
The levels had some interesting things and felt like your soldier on a battlefield with lots of environmental hazards happening around you.
There were also a lot of stuff to collect but I don't know to what end. The health drops were easy to spot but I don't know what the rest of the loot that was gathering does for me.
Theme
The theme is medieval Norse men versus gargoyles and you're the gargoyles. It feels a bit like Demons Crest for the SNES but less fantasy and more medieval warfare. If I remember right, the cartoon took place in modern day, so I assume that you transition to that in future levels and it takes on more of a Batman -like setting.
Art Style
Impressive sprites and animation although the sprites are fairly small. This makes the environment feel very large which I like. It's extremely dark so it's a good thing it wasn't ported to the GBA. The only colors used are black, blue and red.
Audio
The music is trying to be epic. Between that and the gargoyle that you're playing as it reminded me of the song from Fantasia, "Night on Bald Mountain" with the demon and all the ghosts flying around.
Sounds effects are good and again give off a medieval vibe.
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