Well, last night I beat the game after being stuck inside during a rain storm, and I gotta say, this is easily your best work yet. It was easily worth the wait. Unfortunately, I did not find all the points on my first go, with a final score of 1,128,800.
Before playing through this one, I wanted to check out the first 2 in the series to have full context on the story, and I did. I would review them, but it seems like you dislike your work on those and I feel that anything I could say about them has already been said, and it would just be s****y of me to hammer the point in, especially since you've taken the criticism to heart and worked to improve yourself by taking your time and allowing others to help you this time around. Although, I will say, I considered The Armageddon Continues to be the better of the 2 just because I thought the levels were more engaging and I didn't feel like I was playing the same level over and over again.
Anyway, onto the review:
Graphics: The graphics are awesome! Like Nospike said, that backdrop with the starry, dark sky and the clouds in the distance is absolutely gorgeous! I love it!
For a while I was trying to figure out what feeling I had looking at it, and I figured it out as I was playing. Have you ever been hit by a really bad storm in the middle of the night, and either before or after it hits, the moon and stars are out and shining brightly? That's what that backdrop reminds me of, that calm before the storm, or the relief after it has passed. Aside from that, I really like the choice of organic, earthy colors for the earlier stages. They have a more muted, natural look to them that I really like that gives them a more grounded, familiar look to them. In the later half, where more stages take place indoors, the choice of colors is also good, having a nice artificial grey mixed with brighter colors on the backdrop.
Levels: The levels were pretty good. As I mentioned above, one of the problems with your earlier work was the lack of visual variety in the levels, which kept them from being engaging. Here, that's been fixed with a variety of different settings for different stages. As far as playability, they are far more complex then your previous mods, and that's a good thing. There's a lot more secrets this time around, some very well done. There were a few points where the difficulty could feel kind of cheap, such as being trapped in narrow corridors without any way to defend yourself from the robots, but it didn't get in the way of being able to beat the stage. The signs were also a nice touch, giving warnings on where hazards are, as I've often jumped up only to jump into a hazard and die. Also, did one of those say "MOLLY WILL MARRY KEEN"?
My favorite levels are Tempest Islands, Robotic Mines, Mountain Mine, Electro Company Ship, and The Magic Hills.
Enemies: To be honest, I thought some of the enemy designs were kind of generic, particularly regarding the robots. As I thought it over I realized they kind of have a vintage 1950's science fiction look to them, but some of them didn't really have a lot to their design and were pretty bare bones, such as the Mirrorrobot, the Acid Roborhombus and the Guardian Robots. I liked the Transporter Birds though, but one complaint I have about them is that for a natural creature, they're too stiff, they don't look alive. Perhaps if they flapped their wings or blinked, they'd look more alive. Another thing about the birds is, while Keen is riding them, he looks more like he's floating above them. One way this could be fixed perhaps, is if one of the wings overlapped Keen.
Music: The music is wonderful!
I'm glad that you reached out to some of the composers on here to assist you in creating a completely original soundtrack this time around. They did a great job on the soundtrack, giving a nice mix of more organic sounding music for the earlier stages, and transitioning into a more electronic style in the second half. And the one in Magic Hills is really good, giving a climactic and somewhat mystical sound to the final stage. My favorite tracks (I don't know the titles) are used in The Magic Hills, Mountain Mine, Tempest Islands, and the Electro Company Ship. By the way, in some of the demo videos you took down, there were 2 tracks I really liked: one in the Electro Company demo and one in the original demo for the first stage with the original bird sprite, were these used in the game anywhere and who made them?
Conclusion: Overall, I had a lot of fun playing this one. You clearly put a lot of effort into this one, and have worked to better yourself as a modder. All of the criticisms I have about the previous 2 in the series have been corrected with this one. While not perfect, there's a lot more replay value in this one and I see myself playing through it again sometime.
4/5
While I'm here, a couple glitches:
- The stars are off center on the Spiderytryx when stunned
- The birds don't always travel to opposite ends of large bodies of water. I ended up having to use cheat codes a few times to get across.
- When exiting the secret level, the ship doesn't pick me up the first time around.
- In the Robotic Station, the secret area at the top full of Spiderytryxes is inaccessible. (Never mind, found it. That was pretty well hidden.)
If I find any others, I'll update this post.