11 years in the past, I reviewed a enjoyable little battling recreation referred to as Pixel Ways. With some nice retro impressed graphics, Pixel Ways went on to have a reasonably nice run with a number of expansions and even a Mega Man retheme.
Quick ahead to right this moment, and writer Degree 99 Video games has breathed some new life into this recreation with their launch of Tremendous Pixel Ways on Gamefound. Boasting not solely up to date artwork and graphic design, but additionally a storage system and even solo play. May this be the refresh folks have been ready for?
Gameplay Overview:
I lined the gameplay intimately again in 2014 once I first reviewed Pixel Ways. If you wish to know the complete ins and outs, take a look at my overview right here. However the wanting it’s that every participant chooses a pacesetter card and locations them in the midst of what can be a 3×3 grid.
Every spherical is split into 3 waves, the place gamers can take actions with the three playing cards on the highest row of their grid (after which the center row in wave 2 and the underside row in wave 3).
A participant will get two actions every wave. These vary from enjoying a hero, attacking, casting a spell, utilizing an order card, or drawing a card. When a hero takes injury equal to their well being, they’re flipped over and turn into a corpse, with an motion required to clear that house to be reused by a special hero.
The purpose is to scale back your opponent’s chief to zero well being. Achieve this and also you win.
Up to date Sport Impressions:
Even after greater than a decade, I nonetheless discover Pixel Ways pleasing. The gameplay has aged remarkably properly, with a quick paced forwards and backwards duel between gamers. With that in thoughts, I’m not going to spend a lot time speaking concerning the core gameplay, as you may simply learn my unique overview for that.
As an alternative, let’s speak about what’s new in Tremendous Pixel Ways. First, it has upgraded card artwork and design. The unique graphic design was fantastic, however this new look has actually elevated the expertise. The primary recreation had a little bit of “icon soup,” the place they tried to make icons for every character’s energy. This was a noble concept, however it simply didn’t work. There have been so many various icons, they sort of misplaced all which means, and I at all times simply referred to the textual content.
The soup has been dumped on this new model for extra streamlined visuals. The textual content is giving extra room to breathe, and the icons have been decreased to a handful that present the overall theme of the facility (assault, spell, and so on). So high marks from me on the cardboard refresh.
However what’s most attention-grabbing to me is the brand new solo gameplay mode. Over the previous few years, I’ve actually gone all in on solo recreation play, particularly ones that don’t take a ton of time to setup and get going. Degree 99 emailed over a PnP pattern of their new solo mode, and I sort of dig it.
It turns the sport right into a boss combat, however the boss is split up into 9 or so elements, every of which inserts into the three×3 grid of the core gameplay. So, as a substitute of focusing on a novel hero, you might be focusing on a part of the monster. The pattern monster has a Plated Stomach, a Protect Claw, and a Heavy Claw in its entrance row. This gave it a little bit of offense and protection. The Plated Stomach solely served to guard the playing cards behind it, however the Heavy Claw might put out some punishment.
When you’ll want to cut off items of the monster to in the end kill it, the Trussavore has a coronary heart within the middle of its again row. You’ll want to show that to take it down. Most items on the monster will truly regenerate after you kill it, so these Gilded Enamel you chopped off on the best way to the center will develop again in 3 turns to bother you once more.
Along with assaults and spells from the monster elements, the monster additionally has a set of particular skills. At the beginning of every of its turns, you roll a d3 and activate one in every of its powers. These will assist it regrow elements, injury all of your heroes, or pressure you to discard playing cards. This helps even the percentages of an AI monster preventing a residing participant.
The gameplay basically jogs my memory a little bit of Ashes Reborn: Pink Rains, the place you could have a dueling recreation shifted right into a solo recreation and as a substitute of preventing one other military, you might be preventing a giant monster with numerous elements. Whereas this was solely a restricted pattern to check out, I believe it labored properly, and I actually wish to attempt the complete mode and another bosses. Including on this mode undoubtedly provides Pixel Ways much more legs.
Ultimate Ideas:
Whereas the brand new Tremendous Pixel Ways has come a great distance from its tiny, $15 filler recreation field, this upgraded model offers a a lot better expertise (albeit at the next price ticket too). The higher graphics, the storage field, and the solo mode elevate the gameplay into one thing that may see much more desk time.
In case you are taken with checking this one out, there’s nonetheless a couple of extra days left on its gameound marketing campaign.
