Hah! This is a fun retro style platform game. I started having SEGA Genesis and Super Nintendo flashbacks! :O

This game rocks! It's fun! You scoot and dash around as a little robot, shoot and blast your way through enemies (you even get a user guided homing missile) and even fly around with a jetback.

One level I found the jetpack and just start flying non-stop up in the air... going and going... and I found coins! (or whatever they are) xD. Now I'm exploring everything. :D And the controls are awesome with the 360 controller.
The 16 Bit style characters, backgrounds and details look great and the 16-Bit chiptune music is awesome. It's not repetitive and mixes up really well.

If you like playing old school retro style shoot-em up platform games like back in the days of Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx-16, then you should get this game.
For the price it costs, it is more than worth it. :D

It could be a decent platformer if not for the clunky controls, buggy puzzles, and ridiculous level design. Some stages require precision that the game really doesn't allow for. The retro art style is neat but unfortunately that's about all this game has going for it. Hard pass!

To start: There used to be a much longer header to these reviews, but for the sake of brevity I've opted to leave it on my Backloggery page.

Gameplay: The comparison has often been made in the past between this game and Commander Keen + some Genesis/Mega Drive-y stuff. As far as the level design goes, that isn't too far off base, although fortunately for most people this game controls loads better than the Commander Keen games ever did. This game's control scheme is pretty alright, even though I do have a few complaints. Movement is handled (and this will be written with respect to the 360 controller, as playing a platformer with a keyboard just isn't a good idea) with either the analog stick or the D-pad. Double tapping left or right will make you dash, which is one of my complaints. I would've much prefered a dash button as opposed to the double tap option, as I usually tap my directions a lot whenever I try to adjust my landing. Jumping is with A, shooting is with X... pretty standard stuff.

As far as the level design goes, the first three levels are pretty much exactly the same: go destroy the thing, get keycards, shoot enemies, exit level, rinse, lather, repeat. The fourht level inexplicably changes things up, playing more like a traditional Megaman-inspired game. Beyond that... well, I didn't get further than stage four. Why? There was a puzzle room in which you have to maneuver two blocks around a small room to hold down a switch. These blocks are insanely glitchy. I broke that room eight different ways, all while still having not found the "proper" solution to the room. The blocks would sometimes fuse together, rendering them unpushable; sometimes fuse with the ceiling, land on top of you... sometimes they'll just not even bother with colission detection whatsoever.

That's not really a good reason to not recommend the game, though. Why do I not recommend this game, then? It's not so much one huge terrible thing; it's more of a death by 1,000 papercuts, to where I was just looking for an excuse to not play it. For example, moving platforms do not have friction with your sprite, meaning that you've gotta tap a lot in order to stay on that platform (which can also lead to you dashing off said platform and into an arbitrary one-hit kill zone). One section of a level completely obscures the platform, leaving you to just guess whether or not you're still on the platform. Another section with these platforms has you inexplicably changing direction every time you drop to another waterway, leading to some cheap deaths. There's also another section in which platforms are sent out to you entirely on RNG, which can lead to you just kinda dying sometimes. Then there's the boss of area one that runs, launches bombs and knocks things down on you, only to stand still and just kinda die at the end of the level for no reason.

I could probably go on for at least another few paragraphs, but suffice to say I don't think I'll be coming back to this one. Even barring those problems, this game didn't really have enough there in the first place to interest me. It's not a bad game to give to a kid who doesn't really care what they play, and they'll almost certainly get their $5 out of it. As for someone who thinks in terms of game design, this game probably won't be for you. 4/10.

Story: The store page says that this game is story driven. Well, I suppose it kinda is, but it's not really too big of a deal. Of course, since I never finished the game, assigning a point value to the story would be silly, so I'm just not gonna do that.

Graphics: Well, the graphics aren't bad. In fact, this is where I dare say a lot of the effort in the game went to. For the first three levels the pixel art is pretty rad, although it does drop off a bit in terms of quality around level four. Again, beyond that I can't really say much more. One thing I can say, however, is that this game seems to like adding motion blur every now and then (or as I call it, Cataract Vision). There's no way to turn it off, and if you've got motion sickness, I could see this being a bit of an issue for you. Regarding the technical side of the graphics, it of course runs at a perfect 60FPS, and it launches at a resolution which is around 1280x720, to then fullscreen to your native resolution. There didn't seem to be any resolution options other than fullscreen or not-fullscreen, so take that as you will. Given that I try to play games fullscreen at my resolution as often as possible, it wasn't too big of a deal for me. The game performs well enough (as one would expect) and the pixel art is quite good; I just wish there was a way to turn off Cataract Vision. 3/5.

Sound: This is where the Genesis/Mega Drive comparison really comes into play. While it isn't exclusively using the Genesis/MD sound chip, it does borrow some samples such as the bass. Either way, if you're familiar with the Genesis/MD soundchip and enjoy it, you'll enjoy it. I'm impartial to the sound chip, so I didn't really feel that strongly about it. As for the compositions themselves, they're alright in the context of the stages, but it's not something I'd listen to particularly often outside of the game. Also, I do wish they had more than one song for stage four, as the stage doesn't have any level transitions, meaning that you get to hear the same song looping for about 30-40 minutes. As for the sound effects... it's a retro inspired game; what do you expect? I will say that the sound effects do have a tendency to stack and get a bit loud, which can be a bit annoying at times, although it happens pretty rarely, so it's not the biggest deal. Overall on the sound front, it's about average for an indie retro inspired platformer. People who go coocoo for chiptunes may find a lot to love here, but as for me, it's just kinda okay. 2/5.

Overall scores are: 4/0/3/2; cumulative score of 4.5/10. It's biggest problems for me are its smaller problems and that even without said problems, there's not much else going on here. Again, if you want to get it for a kid or something, they'll probably be alright with it for a bit, but if you know some things about game design, this game isn't really gonna interest you.

Don't be fooled by the screenshots: This game is a nice 16-bit attempt but, unfortunately, it's incredibly amateur.

The game has way too much going on in the graphics front. Colors are mishmashed and thrown together (why are background objects as bright as foreground ones), the environments have WAY too much clutter, sometimes it's hard to tell what is a platform or ground from the background, and at too many times there is foreground foliage that blocks too much of your view (If this is unintentional it's an amateur mistake, if it's intentional it is neither fun nor challenging). The cutscenes look awful as well.

The controls are sometimes awkward and ANY area involving pushing moveable crates onto water is a headache. Why doesn't the robot simply move along with the crate? Why do I need to manually move him along with it? Again, this isn't fun and it's a terribly cheap challenge. There is a level in stage two where you need to do this for an extended amount of time without any checkpoints and it is unbelieveably frustrating (I have actually quit the game since this area and do not intend to come back).

Apparently no one tested the levels for collision either as far too many levels with the jetpack allow to move behind walls or enviromental objects you're not supposed to, some of which trap you or kill you or all around mislead you.

It doesn't help that certain enemies come in different sizes and are not easily destroyed by your guns. This is most noticeable in the spider boss level where you simply cannot shoot the green enemies blocking your path because they're at an awkward height. This would have been easily fixed simply by not having the grenade attack hurt you ala Metroid. And while you have multiple weapons at your disposal almost none of them are very useful outside of the grenade.

And speaking of the spider boss, why is the boss level in the MIDDLE of the world? Why did the world just end a couple levels later when I went down a random sewer pipe? The pacing is just bizarre.

I wanted to like the game, and I realize it's probably a first attempt at making a game, but this is just too unfinished and poorly thought out for me to enjoy. This could have easily used more time in the kitchen, first attempt or not.

Terrian Saga KR-17 is a mix of three genres which are action, platforming and puzzle solving. It starts off quite puzzle heavy but the later levels have a lot more action and platforming. Our protagonist is a robot that has gained sentience and goes off to take back a planet conquered by a terrorist. I learned the story via the Steam description, besides the intro the story in Terrian Saga is non existent. Accompanying you is a sentient missile which acts as your guide and is also briefly controllable when you summon him. All the dialogue is presented in text, there is no voice acting.

When you first gain control of your character one of the first things you will notice is that the game is locked at 30fps. That is not a deal breaker but it does affect the game negatively. Your KR-17 robot comes equipped with your basic blaster and a grenade launcher. The grenade launcher uses up energy but it is a very small amount and kills most enemies with one hit. That's the weapon to go with unless you are out of energy and have to resort to the blaster. Energy is recharged via stations scattered about the level and they are usually close enough that you will rarely run out. You can also summon your sentient missile friend but that does cost quite a chunk of energy.

The missile is controllable but once he starts moving he can't stop and if he crashes he will disappear causing you to waste more energy summoning him again. He is very useful to hit hard to reach enemies and is also used to go into places your character can't to destroy a certain object. These sections start off easy enough though they quickly become a pain as they demand further precision and add a lot of sharp turns. They are not short sections either, they take quite a while and simply scraping into something destroys you causing the missile to be summoned again from the start. Your hitbox being so large does not help either.

KR-17 controls much better though he does also suffer from having a large hitbox which an be a pain when forced to avoid insta-death obstacles tiny areas. The game does start off very easy and you may think it is much more of a puzzle game than anything else. You'd be dead wrong. It won't take long for this game to get very brutal and you will need fast reaction speeds. You will be facing much more dangerous and numerous enemies as well as tougher platforming. That is when the game truly gets fun and becomes something in the veins of Mega Man. Though no where near as brutal as that since you have infinite lives and save stations are usually scattered close together.

Certain levels sections do not have save stations and you have to beat it all in one go. One particularly troublesome section is one where you have to stand on a tiny log throughout a water filled level. The slightest touch of water will cause you to explode and that level dragged on far too long. Don't get me wrong it is fun but do not be expecting an easy laid back puzzle/platformer after the first couple of levels. One thing that is a problem though is that certain objects in the foreground can block view of your character which is problematic when facing enemies or jumping over hazards. It is not a common occurrence though. There are also some pads which will either drop down or bounce you up that probably will cause your death if you did not expect it. Changing the colors of the pad would have been an easy fix to be able to tell them apart.

Nothing about the environments feel felt memorable or unique, just random pieces of map sown together to form a level. The artstyle itself is very nice and is 32 bit instead of the usual 8 or 16 most indies use. Music is decent. Nothing special but it gets the job done. The hud is great and simple to understand though at times it can hide the view of enemies or obstacles and cause you to take damage due to it. You can take up to five hits from enemies or most obstacles and you refill it by finding a red floating crystal. Be careful though, the frames of invincibility after being hit are very few and you will likely get hit multiple times in succession if you are not able to escape after getting damaged.

Terrian Saga KR-17 was a nice surprise. I believe it to be a hidden gem that is rough around the edges. It really does feels like this would have been a classic game if this was released back in the day. The 30 FPS cap was an odd decision that took some enjoyment out of it and other problems do bring it down from being great. Overall this is definitely a title to check out if you like platformers, puzzles and the action genre. If you don't like even one of those this may not be the game for you. All three genres are mixed very well and persist throughout the entire game. For those of you that do enjoy all three, Terrian Saga KR-17 is definitely a title worth considering.

Terrain Saga: KR-17 is a linear side-scroller featuring a torsoless blue robot and his sidekick, a mysteriously resurrecting missile with arms named "J1M" in their quest to quell the robotic rebellion on the planet Valiant. Graphically, the game does draw influence from blue robot games of greater repute, however, the similarities, more or less, end there.

KR-17 suffers from an overall lack of polish. Graphics I often found were stretch and scaled and sometimes it was difficult to tell which was foreground and which was background. The difficulty of the challenges seem to follow no particular pattern and much of the gameplay feels a bit like filler. The bosses I found to be incredibly weak and more than half of them involved running through a gauntlet of hazards while the boss destroys the level. The music, rather than employing catch chiptunes, assaults us with MIDI-esque synthesized music. Because of the overall lack of polish, rather than feeling like a classic, it feels like a bit like a b-list side-scroller downloaded from a BBS circa 1993. This game needs at least another 6 months in the oven before it's fully baked.

The game looks better than it actually is, however if you're a vintage gamer and in the mood for this sort of gameplay, dispite it's many flaws, it does offer some respectible challenges. If you're a particular fan of this genre, pick this game up, but don't expect anything life-chaning.

5.5/10

Never had a game I enjoyed so much at the start, that just kept worse and worse till it wasn't worth playing anymore. The game is initially awesome, with a megaman feel, being a platformer lite on story, with spunky music and 90's aesthetic. There are a few minor annoyances, like how much special the rocket takes, or how you can't aim to shoot people, which seems like a obvious addition these days since you take so much unnecessary damage from having to jump up in fire to shoot or not being able to shoot some one above you who is shooting down on you. These are minor problems. The game is also pretty long for a platformer, meaning you get good bang for your buck. It is obnoxious how many levels follow the same Doom format of having to find a set number of colored keys in order, unlocking doors forward or ahead to beat the level, or having to press a preset number of switches till you can leave the level. Many of the levels have similar vibes and feelings of being inside robotic facitilities, but once again all of these mentioned above do little more than hinder the experience. The game is also semi tough but not stupidly so, with no set number of lives to beat everything, and some mid-level save points. Jumping was also done very well, not too floaty.

The real problem is with a few TERRIBLE design, controls, and mechanic desicions that are then focused and reinforced so much so in later levels to a baffling degree. First off is the guided rocket. The control of this is absolutely awful. Instead of moving free in space as would make sense, it moves super fast along in a single square-by-square basis. The game then requires you to navigate tiny little mazes. If it were free range you would be able to use skill, reflexes, and aiming. This version is just stupid. It moves super fast and the response is delayed. Since it moves square to square sometimes you turn and you are too high or low to make a smaller tunnel, but you basically can't do anything because you stopped on that square. You cannot make minor adjustments as it moves too fast. The D-pad is too hard to move from horizontal to vertical for quick turns. The analog is also finnicky and hard to be consistent with, meaning neither controller options work. Then the game makes you do this long mazes that are super narrow, forcing you to make perfect turns and then 5 in a row. If you touch the wall you instant die, and some parts involve 20-30 seconds of this straight, and if you die you need to do it all again. This is frustrating being forced to replay parts of the maze you beat just to play trial and error with a terrible system. Deaths never feel your fault.

Then there is the jetpack. Once again, instead of just a natural free-flowing jetpack you move around, it is not intuitive. You hold up to move up, and let go to move down, and press side to side to move sideways. This is also supper finnicky and annoying to use. The analog stick is unusable by itself, as pressing up moves you flying up too quickly. The d-pad is also impossible to move because you have to slide from up to side back to up, and it is finnicky. This means the best option is using the d-pad to move up, while the other hand controls the analog to move forward. That is how terrible the controls are and the mechanic is implimented, you need to use both analog and d-pad at same time to work best. Again multiple parts later on have you navigate these areas covered on all sides with instant-death walls, which the game loves to overuse. So you will finally be moving well and suddenly the finnicky jetpack goes up too fast and you instant die, making you redo your perfect flying earlier, just to get back and past that part, only to die on a later part and do it again. The parts, like the mazes, should be shorter to not inflate cheap replayability. And some parts make you shoot guys while moving the jetpack through instant death spots, making the controls even worse.

Then there is the moving platform/object mechanic. In every single platform game on any system ever, when you jump on a log moving in water, or stand on an object/platform that is moving, you move with it, because you know, science/logic. Well in this game for some stupid reason (to add unnecessary difficulty to something simple) the object moves but you don't. So this means each time you have to keep moving along with this moving object, randomly tapping forward for long periods of time, with any mistake meaning instant death. Then there is the dash ability. Instead of making sense and using one of the many unused buttons, so it is botton/simultaneous button dependent like megaman or other games, it relies on an unreliable double tap forward. The first problem is it only works like 2/3 of the time. It does not work with analog stick. Only arrows. So once again another mechanic that only works with 1 of the 2 possible directional controls, cutting down on options. Other times, since you have to press forward multiple times in parts, this can lead to you dashing when you don't want to when you were trying to move forward, leading to many unintentional deaths that aren’t your fault.

Then there are certain level designs. Normally they have saves in most levels, but then there are levels that for some reason use tons of instant deaths/only instant death, as the sole way to die, and instead of using more saves as you would think, has ZERO saves, meaning you have to replay the entire level over and over again to beat a certain part you die on if you make 1 single mistake. For a game that stayed away from this so well, forcing entire level replays is something basic and cheap that games like super meat boy do, but I got the original impression this would be different. There will be levels that throw many of these terrible instances together. In one level you have to use a jetpack, to get through multiple instant kill areas, shoot guys, ride platforms where you don’t move with them, etc, and if you die you do it all over again. These lead to wasted time replaying terribly controlled segments because the game makers decided to stop using common sense and put any save spots in the level. Who would think it’s a good idea to suddenly have levels where you have to do the entire thing without getting hit or touched once or you restart it all.
The final nail in the coffin was a boss fight. First off, instead of a fair boss fight it is one of those stupid ones where the power is out of your hands and you can’t damage him until it decides you can at certain parts. Well you have to dodge tons of mines, bombs, bullets, and object forever. The boss makes 4 continuous trips of something, instead of what actually makes sense, 1-2. The spend the entire fight not being able to hurt him and dodge while he decides to keep attacking you. When you finally make it through that long drawn out repetitive phase, you then are forced to fly through smaller narrow different level spikes with a jetpack. You get to a spot in the air where he keeps shooting at you forever, while you get shot at by rockets. You have no idea what to do, and decide you must keep dodging for what seems like forever. If you die once during any of this you start the ENTIRE long drawn out dodging process on the ground, meaning you need to waste countless time to get back up to the sky. Why they make you waste time going through a mine field with the terrible jetpack is beyond me. But why they don’t save when you made it past a long boring dodging phase, only to make you restart it all, is beyond me. Why they force levels with no saves, long drawn out fights that don’t save between phases, the terrible jetpack, moving objects, rocket aiming, and inadequate spacing of saves, is beyond me. If you want constant irritation later on in a game because you are replaying parts because the develops made dumb decisions, is never fun The game had potential, but fortunately shoots itself in the foot. 4/10.

KR-17 is pretty obviously a retro-style platformer that harkens back to the good old days of the SNES. It plays very similarly to the 2D Duke Nukem Games or Megaman, but with some different twists. Really, if you like games from this genre, at $4- you can't really go wrong here. It won't knock your socks off, but it'll be a pretty good nostalgia trip.

Features:
* Gameplay is pretty generic, jumping shooting are standard faire.
* You have 4 extra attacks, plus a guided missile, largely for enemy destruction, but sometimes for puzzle solving. They're largely unecessary, but can be useful in certain cases. The guided rocket is a bit OP if you can manage to control it properly.
* The soundtrack is pretty solid, and while the songs can get repetitive, you won't be around a level long enough for it to get annoying.
* Most levels are pretty simple: the only goal is to reach the exit. Unfortunately, most levels require you to flip a bunch of switches, and it's pretty easy to miss one or two. Doesn't take much time to go back and find them, but its still a bit annoying.
* The controls are weird. Especially with the jetpack (you have to hold up on the right stick, and move horizontally with the left stick, otherwise you'll stop flying and probably die). Once you get used to that, it's pretty smooth.
* The enemies feel more like traps/obstacles than proper opponents, which isn't bad, but it does make them feel a little slapped down on the levels.

Also, here are our thoughts in video form!
http://youtu.be/_JNoi7KA-As

This is a pretty straightforward platformer with nothing really innovative going on. Controls are tight and responsive, but the dash is too easy to trigger when trying to make precise corrections, and the game sort of forces you into that kind of situation from time to time. In some places distinguishing between background and foreground tiles is impossible and you end up face-planting into a wall, which is frustrating.

Overall the game isn't really shaky, but it's still far from solid. I feel like someone decided to make a platformer, then at the 80% mark they said, "Ah, that's good enough."

It's not bad or anything, there's just nothing to recommend it when there's plenty of more polished platformers competing against it. If you're really hard up for a platformer then you may like it, otherwise you're probably better off looking for something else.

9/10. Retro, smart and simple. This game has a great difficutly, so if u want to take some hours doing something, playing this game will be a great idea.