I'm probably not the best for this, but Boshy definitely deserves at least one review...so here goes:
First off, Guy fangames(derivatesI'm probably not the best for this, but Boshy definitely deserves at least one review...so here goes:
First off, Guy fangames(derivates from I wanna be the guy such as I wanna be the Boshy, I wanna Kill the Kamilia, IWKTK2 and 3, IWKT Guy and such) are meant to be brutal. They are meant to be unfair, cruel and completely a**holish with their players. These are pain games.
The original IWBTG was far, far more unfair than Boshy is, but Boshy will still have its huge share of cheap deaths, unpleasant surprises, terrible, heartless level design, long and very cruel bosses that will kill you literally thousands of times before you've learned their patterns fully and can beat them.
Boshy is, all in all, a trial game. You play it because you want a painful thing that'll teach you to be, well, "the Boshy".
As such, it is a magnificent game. The levels each mirror a world from one or several great videogame series with their musics and backgrounds. Kirby, Wario, Mario, Sonic, Street Fighter, Zelda(more the CD-I kind of Zelda), Pokémon, Mortal Kombat, Ninja Gaiden, Gradius, VVVVVV, Godzilla, Prehistorik, Megaman, Metal Gear Solid, Hello Kitty, Cheetahmen, Castlevania, Kid Icarus, Kappa from Twitch.tv, Lord of the Rings and tons of other cultural references make you feel like you're really crossing an immense trial to fight all the great heroes and lords of gaming.
The absolutely gorgeous soundtrack makes this game become so epic when the very difficult, RNG-filled boss fights are supported by great rock and dance soundtracks, remixes from Megaman III's title screen, Cheetahmen II's main music, Super Mario Bros 3(I think) or Sonic's Green Hill zone. Fighting your way through the numerous hazards of this game may be unfair as all hell and the difficulty may be beyond believable, but it only should feel more satisfying and rewarding when you actually, after hundreds of helpless defeats, manage to vanquish the boss or pass the very difficult part of the level.
But despite these immense qualities in panache and style, Boshy is still an IWBT fangame.
Its difficulty is ridiculous. The number of cheap, impossible deaths that you literally cannot see coming is through the roof. There are so many traps that you will have to die your way through to learn how to beat them. There's difficult difficult, and d*ck difficult. A huge part of Boshy is definitely the latter a lot more than the former.
While most bosses are very, very hard but fair enough, all about learning their pattern, some are ridiculously unfair. Solgryn, the final boss of the game, must take dozens if not hundreds of retries just to learn all its attack patterns, which you have to know how to avoid before the attack even comes on screen, because after it'll be too late!
Mario or Megaman will fall on you and kill you before the fight even starts. Sonic will have Tails fly through the screen and kill you for sure, unless you've already died at it so many times that you've learned the full pattern of the boss and will survive. I've seen people scream madly in happiness at beating Sonic, after two thousand five hundred deaths at him!
Solgryn has several phases, the third one amongst them being filled with so many attacks you need to know about before the attack is even visible that you'll most likely have to go through phase 1 and 2 literally hundreds of times....
Aside from the bosses, the levels are ridiculously hard. many cheap deaths will come from things you can't see, such as spikes flying off the walls and in your face in a way that you could never see coming the first time. Going into a new screen and falling almost immediately on spikes you could never see coming is quite common. Jumps that require extreme precision and will demand so many dozens of retries to do properly, only to be followed by more jumps that require as much precision, means that you'll spend an entire hour on one measly screen of this game, trying to find your way through...
This game is truly, entirely, made to pain you.
That's why I'm giving it a 5. As a game, it's an awful, extremely difficult, and an all-around frustrating game that makes you want to kill yourself rather than keep playing. It wouldn't get such a bad note just for being hard, but the difficulty is really completely unfair and cruel.
1/10.
But as a "game" sort of trial that makes you go through 12 full levels of 2D sidescrolling, fighting heroes and legends of vidya, hearing great songs from NES all the way to modern flying games, and making you feel like a real achiever of the impossible at the end, it's definitely the best of the Guy fangames, and a very memorable thing. Hearing the credits theme after finishing Solgryn is a true trophy for a hardcore gamer. It's free too, so no worries about losing money on it, you'll just lose time. And your sanity.
9/10.… Expand
