HELLESCAPE - Demo

Finished the demo. Honestly this isn't half bad, solid art, music, and bullet patterns in battle. Bugs aside though I think this is just far...FAR too derivative of UT/DR and related fanworks. Look, I'm not the kind of person to trash on a game just for being derivative or a clone, but most good games with that label add in some twist, or just try to execute the original's ideas in a better way.

This game just feels a little too sloppy atm, everything here has been done better somewhere else. The most unique things in the game are probably the setting and the battle system. I think the warioware esque mini games, while cute, eat up so much more time compared to being a pacifist in deltarune. Being violent gives access to neat skills, but with only one party member and not too many options it's hard to appreciate the flexibility of such a system (All I did in this demo was spam that star attack).

As for the story, I like the setting being in hell with rings but it doesn't really feel like it's leaned into as much as it really should have. I also wasn't really a fan of how the intro is just gaster, Akuma feeling like a flowey clone, or Llya being this weird Toriel/Ceroba fusion with awkward dialogue and a rushed arc. I admit I'm not really a Christian mythos nerd or anything but when I play this game It doesn't feel like a significant amount of time went into researching the actual mythos and referencing it in the game via setting/characters/enemy design.

In general I just think you need to do some more research, play more RPGs, read more books, watch more shows, anything to fill your head with lots of different inspiration, and then draw from it to create something new and unique. As is I think it's a shame to have the skills to make a solid demo like this but no courage to create something only you could envision.

I didn't finish it because the game kept crashing. If you input an extra arrow on the rhythm game thing then it crashes the game which is... Not great. And like other people said, the framerate TANKS in some rooms for no apparent reason? I'm not playing on a crap pc either, so a little gamemaker game like this has no reason to lag that bad. I thought that somehow you changed the roomspeed to be half in those rooms or something for them to do that.

Anyway, yeah. Crashed several times and there's not enough savepoints. Like why is there not a savepoint after the big cat thing? I can't skip dialogue either like I can in Deltarune so i have to spam x and z to get through it which is far more of a pain than the skip all option. I would def add that and the ability to slow down in battle for precise movements. Weird how this game doesn't have that.

Speaking of Deltarune... Jesus Christ this game likes Undertale/Deltarune way too much. I can't go 30 seconds without groaning and going, yeah that's something ripped straight from UTDR. And never with any real new twist to it. It's the battle system, the UI, the music, the areas.... EVERYTHING feels like a direct inferior clone of UTDR. The game has no identity of its own. I didn't experience anything creative or no that hasn't been done to death in these kinds of games before. Everything just kinda feels like a rehash. Like... Wow! Look at this!! You like Undertale right?? Well, heres something FROM Undertale!!! So you'll like my game too, right??? It just makes me want to go play something original. The game starts with the same gaster sequence, then fall down a hole with the same animation Kris has..., meet creepy bad guy who gets hit by a bullet by off screen friend, meet furry mom thats totally not toriel. Like it's all so derivative and played out. It's every Undertale/Deltarune fangame trope that's been done to death ten million times, which gets old in fangames but when this is supposed to be an original game?? It just makes it all fall flat. Make YOUR OWN game. Make YOUR OWN music, too, as every song sounds like a direct clone of another song. The intro is literally aquatic ambience, the menu sounds the same as Deltarune's, the battle theme sounds the same as rude buster, there's little original here.

I don't want to be too harsh as I know it's hard making something like this, I would know as I've got my own Undertale-like RPG I'm making but this left a sour taste in my mouth. Amplified by all the crashes and bugs. The art looks nice, and the music sounds quite good too (though a lot of it is pretty.. "inspired"..). I would like to see you improve a lot more from this. Good job on getting something released at all, but yeah. Lean into your own stuff a lot more than trying to be something else is what I'll say.

Hellsoup

I'm doing the equivalent of the genocide route in the game (idk the official name) and, when i reloaded my save, all the enemies reappeared as an encounter, and in the booths area (where the fish lady is) they are saying I sealed them? Idk if this is a bug or not, principally because it happened after I reloaded the game and got the mono-slash.
btw, good game!!! I'm having a lot of fun playing it.