Henry Hatsworth and some other stuff

[miffy495]

So I'm preparing for a trip in the next week-ish. Long plane ride ahead of me. The purchase of the DSi recently was timed when it was partly in anticipation of this. I thought GTA Chinatown Wars would hold me over on the trip, but I've almost completed it and I don't leave til Thursday. As such, I was in the market for a cheap, but solid DS game to take over after I finished GTA. Spent a bit of time trying to decide between Rhythm Heaven and Henry Hatsworth, but in the end, Hatsworth was $5 cheaper.

God. Damn. This game is amazingly fun. Like, incredible. How this is getting only "good" review scores, I have no idea. The levels are long and varied, the controls are tight and responsive, the puzzle is good enough that it's never an inconvenience to go down to the bottom screen to build up some extra energy, the platforming is insanely well done. Everything about this game seems to be exactly what one could hope for from it. I won't go into crazy details right now, as I have a paper to write and have procrastinated enough, but holy shit get this game. It's turning out to be one of those mini-masterpieces that seem to usually only show up in the indie games scene, but stretched out to what is starting to look like Super Mario World size. Only two worlds in right now, but I can't wait to go back to it. Miffy's seal of approval delivered. Buy this and fun times will be had.

[Chris]

Henry Hatsworth becomes hard as shit and will make you hate it and Kyle Gray and yourself

[miffy495]

Um... fair enough? Are we talking like, Viewtiful Joe hard? That shit was the only game that ever made me throw a controller, during that last level where you had to fight all of the goddamn impossible bosses in a row on one life. As long as it doesn't reach that level, I should be able to power through eventually. I hope...

[Roderick]

Where are you going, Miffy?

I'm hearing such good things about Hatsworth, I'll probably buy it way sooner than Chinatown Wars.

[elmuerte]

wait a minute... where do you get cheap NDS games? I've only seen serious crap being sold below 37 euros, most of the games are 40'ish.

How "long" is long. Usually when I play on my NDS I have to be able to save it within 5 minutes (without losing too much progress)

[Roderick]

Hogswash! If you know where to look and when to strike, stuff can be cheap. Last week, Chinatown Wars was 27 Euros all over town here in Arnhem (the V&D started stunting, which forced the Mediamarkt to join in). Then there's importing from sites like DVDBoxoffice or Play, which isn't a problem with DS games because they're region free.

[miffy495]

Going to California for the Coachella festival. Ridiculously stoked. Never even seen a palm tree before, and now I get to go out to the desert to watch Leonard Cohen, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Amanda Palmer, Morrissey, and tons more I'm forgetting perform.

I don't know how prices are on the other side of the Atlantic, but Hatsworth was $30 Canadian to Rhythm Heaven's $35. I'm pretty sure that's just the standard price. First party Nintendo games tend to run $40 or $45, so I considered a $30 one pretty good. If you're lucky, sometimes you can pick up a gem for $15 or $20. Latest bit of awesome was a couple of months ago getting Air Traffic Chaos (looks terrible, but so good) for $15.

[Nevsky]

Over here, Hatsworth seems to be on the cheaper tier of DS games. According to Amazon, its RRP is £20 (as opposed to £25-30, like Chinatown Wars), and I'm finding it for £15 on Gameplay, Play, etc.

I think I'll be picking it up at some point. It definitely looks interesting!

[elmuerte]

Hogswash! If you know where to look and when to strike, stuff can be cheap. Last week, Chinatown Wars was 27 Euros all over town here in Arnhem (the V&D started stunting, which forced the Mediamarkt to join in).

Well here nobody is stunting here. Mediamarkt is the cheapest, the next door FRS sells them all at 40-45. Haven't checked the V&D a little down the street.

Then there's importing from sites like DVDBoxoffice or Play, which isn't a problem with DS games because they're region free.

Play never has the NDS games in stock which I want to buy. It's a conspiracy. But also the shipping duration of Play sucks. For some weird reason it takes between 2 and 3 weeks on average. And I always forget to check Play when buying NDS games. Recently I've been buying stuff through amazon.co.uk (I like the current exchange rate). (I finally got a hold on copy of scrapland)

[gdf]

I'm starting to think I should get a DS Lite...

[miffy495]

Ok Remo, you win. Hard as shit. Still fun though. Just really, really hard.

[fallout]

Henry Hatsworth becomes hard as shit and will make you hate it and Kyle Gray and yourself

I think what killed me (aside from dying all the time) was that it was reasonably challenging and then somewhere in World 3, I'm throwing out lives like they're candy. I think I blew through a dozen lives just trying to get through some levels. I basically gave up at that point. I mean, I could grind for power-ups (whatever that means! ), but I was just so deflated after throwing my head against the wall for hours.

Still, it's a fun game and a great concept. I might go back to it sometime, but it's going to be awhile before those wounds heal.

[miffy495]

Uh oh. Just beat the boss of World 2. That romance pirate guy was awesome. I only had a couple of tough bits, and after I upgraded the hell out of Henry there were no more problems. Hopefully those will help me power through World 3 and onto the next bit. The game is so damn charming I can't stay mad at it though. I hope that holds up at least.

[miffy495]

On to world 4 level 5 now, which I think means that there should only be another 7 levels left, if the map is accurate. However, there are still something like 4 pieces of the suit left for me to find, so I don't know how that's going to work out. Either way, I feel like I should respond to what Remo said about this game in the podcast.

As I recall, the claim was that the game got immensely difficult around halfway through level 3. This is somewhat true. The meat of the game (platforming, enemy grunts, etc) does not get significantly harder, but the bosses become the platforming equivalent of a bullet-hell type of game. Like, think Ikaruga, but with an old guy in a pith helmet instead of a space ship. The midboss of world 3 took me about 15 tries, and the final boss took the same. Strangely, judging by the midboss of level 4 going down in two tries (and he has two forms you have to fight in succession, as well!) it would seem that surviving those fights has forced me to develop the skill to continue on without too much difficulty.

On the other hand, world 4 has been causing me a lot more platforming deaths. The levels get really convoluted and trying to stay on a moving platform while being bombarded with enemies from a Gauntlet-style spawning device is a huge challenge. Beating them feels amazing though. I'd say that, of games that I'm actually motivated to finish, this is easily one of the hardest I've played in a long long time. Still though, it never seems unfair. When I finally do make it through a section, it's usually unscathed and feeling like my reflexes have been honed to perfection. Only rarely (I'm looking at you, boss of world 3) do I come out of a scrape with an enemy feeling like I just barely hung on by the skin of my teeth. Even that feeling is a rush though, so I can't complain.

Basically, this game feels like it's been tuned to perfection, at least for my skill level. Every time I die, I know that if I were just a little bit faster I could have made it out without incident, and this motivates me to go back. If I feel like I've been cheated by a game, I stop playing. I haven't stopped. I've completely fallen in love with Hatsworth, hard as balls though it may be.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Speaking of addictive DS games, did anyone play Professor Layton? My and girlfriend and I both played and completed it (the first ever game for my gf!). Highly recommended

I think I might have to get her this Henry Hatsworth thing.

[miffy495]

WARNING: She would need significant amounts of either old-school NES skill or the patience to develop it. Hard as balls. Not kidding.

[elmuerte]

Ok, I think I'll pass on Hatsworth. This description doesn't make it sound like a fun game.

[toblix]

Speaking of addictive DS games, did anyone play Professor Layton? My and girlfriend and I both played and completed it (the first ever game for my gf!). Highly recommended

Professor Layton is so awesome it should have its own thread.

Oh, look, it already has one, you FUCKING IDIOT!!!

[miffy495]

Ok, I think I'll pass on Hatsworth. This description doesn't make it sound like a fun game.

Nooooo! It is, it really is! Hard /= not fun!

[fallout]

Ok, I think I'll pass on Hatsworth. This description doesn't make it sound like a fun game.

I think it's worth it for the 3 levels that I played. And I typically suck at these kinds of games, so maybe you'll get more out of it!

[BigJKO]

It gets bitch hard in world 4, for me..

I've loved pretty much everything so far, but world 4 is just such a bitch. Up until that I've felt that completing really hard sections was really rewarding, for some weird reason. But yeah, I have to agree with Chris that it's not really because it's well-designed. Even if you can finish a ridiculously hard section, by repeating it enough times that you memorize certain parts of it and/or develop insane reflexes to certain situations, it just ends up throwing a more difficult section immediately afterwards. And then all the reflexes/memorizing doesn't amount to shit anymore and you have to repeat that same thing.

This didn't happen so much in the first three worlds, though.

But it's taken me forever just to get through the first level of world 4, just because of the annoyingly hard platforming, followed by some insane enemy encounter.

And I'm really disappointed because it started out great. It has some genuinely fun, and smart, designs for the puzzle/platform mix (the big four-part enemy, who needs to be killed a certain way in order to not become a huge puzzle block) and just the general idea of how to keep the player switching back and forth is pretty solid. But it feels like after a couple of upgrades to Hatsworth, the puzzle part isn't nearly as hard as it was in the beginning. You end up having way too much time in the puzzle realm than you need. So, instead of making the upgrades harder to get, it just throws a fuckload of enemies/stupid platforming shit/non-sense bosses at you in the platformer part to make it somewhat more stressful in the puzzle part. And the bosses don't even integrate that well with the puzzle part. Most of the times they're not throwing enough puzzle enemies into it, and their attacks at the puzzle pieces are pretty much either pushing it up faster, or locking parts of it down.

[elmuerte]

Yeah.. I think I'm going with GTA for the DS, have like 15 hours of traveling next week. And I don't want a frustrating game. (or are there any other recommendations? PC games for a +-1.5 GHz/Geforce 4mx are also possible)

[miffy495]

GTA is also a great choice. I kind of bop back and forth between the two, as I actually find GTA to be way too easy, and the two together keep me happy with the amount of challenge my games are throwing at me. Been mostly GTA this week, but I did put in some time and get to world 5-4 on Hatsworth. BigJKO, it does have some more interesting puzzle additions as it goes. There are bosses and even regular enemies who will throw blocks into your puzzle that double the speed it scrolls at, which can be really challenging.

There's also one miniboss I've run into twice now who is a great idea. He starts out as this giant blob of green goo, and after you do a certain amount of damage to him he throws himself into your puzzle as a 4x4 block. If you line up two blocks of the same colour next to him, he'll cycle to another colour and get a chunk of his life knocked off. After a few hits of this he'll shrink to 3x3, but the whole time he's getting closer and closer to the top of the screen. If he hits the top, he respawns, but sending him back down to the puzzle again keeps him at the same stage he was when he got back to the top. Usually I beat him while he's on the puzzle screen for the second time. I love this boss. He's difficult, but a perfect integration of puzzle and platform and is so cool to fight.

Of course, I'm still enjoying it so much because I've still never hit a part where it feels unfair to me. I usually find myself riding the edge of death but getting enough puzzle time in at the last second to send me back to the young Henry bit. So fun. Don't know how much of the game is left, but I'm also looking forward to it carrying on for a while, so I don't mind that.

[BigJKO]

Yeah, the wizard (!) type guy who throws himself in as a speed-up block is awesome. I miss more of that type of enemies, not just the old enemies on hyper-mode.

That mini-boss sounds exactly like what I want, though! Looking forward to him.

[miffy495]

Thought he was a one-time thing after fighting him sometime during World 4, but he popped up again in 5-2, so he'll be hitting you soon enough.