Should preface this by saying Aksys did not develop this game, they simply published it. Horgihugh and Friends is a bright, colorful cute 'em up with pleasant music which fails on almost every level of game design. Like with most cute 'em ups, don't let the child-friendly aesthetic fool you, this game is hard, arguably harder on easy mode.
The first major flaw in gameplay is level design.Should preface this by saying Aksys did not develop this game, they simply published it. Horgihugh and Friends is a bright, colorful cute 'em up with pleasant music which fails on almost every level of game design. Like with most cute 'em ups, don't let the child-friendly aesthetic fool you, this game is hard, arguably harder on easy mode.
The first major flaw in gameplay is level design. This game plays like a euro shmup with it's boring enemy patterns where most enemy swarms can be wiped out by simply sitting in the middle of the screen and holding autoshot. Not the most egregious flaw, but it makes replaying levels unpleasant.
Then there is enemy placement. I feel like the developer purposefully placed enemies just to aggravate you. The biggest problem is this bouncy enemy which appears multiple times every level. This enemy is faster than you and will launch out of the back of the screen, slamming into your ship and killing you. The obvious solution would be to stay in the middle of the screen at all times. Easier said than done. The bouncy enemy will bounce off physical obstacles in the level, making its movements hard to predict, BUT it does not bounce off all obstacles. It bounces off all blocks, but at random it will bounce off of or move through terrain like volcanoes, making its trajectory completely unpredictable. Did I mention it moves faster than you?
Then you have bonus balloons which raise your score, but these are often beginner traps. In the first level alone there are three instances where going for the balloons will immediately get you killed. The first two, enemies will fly in off screen with no warning and stop over the balloon as you go to pick it up, crashing into your ship and killing you. Then later in the level, there is a swarm of bonus balloons, but this is another beginner's trap. With no warning, a massive rock spawns from underwater, taking the place of the balloons and making them unreachable. You won't fall for these traps on multiple playthroughs, but just punishing people starting out is bad game design.
Then there is movement....easily the worst movement in a shmup since Habroxia. You don't move particularly slow or too fast, and you can even augment your speed by spending gems, but after level one, your movement is screwed for the rest of the game. I couldn't figure out why I was crashing so much in the game. I haven't died more to crashing in a shmup since R-Type. Then I figured it out. After level 1, the screen moves as you move. This has been done before in games like Lightening Force, but in Horgihugh, the screen moves in the opposite direction! That means if you move up, the screen comes down to meet you and totally throws off your spatial awareness. It's something you'll never truly get past because it happens in every level. You can buy power downs in the shop to slow your ship down, but they probably should have just kept a static screen.
Lastly, there are the items. I have never seen such a convoluted power-up and item system in a shmup before. There are exactly three ways to get power-ups in game. The professor will fly in from off screen and toss you a randomized one, but if you're out of position, you'll never catch it. Sometimes when you kill an enemy, a power-up container will spawn. Lastly, the game has an in-level shop like in Fantasy Zone. The shop...it took me forever to figure this out and the game never explains it. When you buy a weapon mod, life, shield, or speed augment, you get the power-up. Simple enough. When you buy a rocket or bomb power-up, YOU DON'T GET THE POWER-UP! It's absolutely baffling they made this design choice. When you buy a rocket or bomb power-up, you have to wait for it to spawn later in the level. But don't items spawn naturally in a level? YES! And when the professor gives you an item, you have no idea what it will be until you pick it up, so it might be something you don't even want. The design of the shop is such a baffling decision, I don't know how someone could sit there and think it's a good idea to give players some of the power-ups they bought but not others.
Lastly, there is easy mode. W.T.F. The mode gives you a second AI ship to fight with you. This may seem like it would make the game easier, but it does not. Constantly, in the heat of gameplay, you will forget which ship is yours because they are identical except for color, causing constant accidental crashes. I stopped trying easy mode after my tenth crash.
All that combined, this game is immensely frustrating and not fun to play. You'll die many more times to bad design than enemy ships. There could be a fun, little game here if they fixed all these problems, but even then, it's kind of a boring, uninspired shmup. It's so basic, it feels like it was made twenty years ago, not just in aesthetic which is actually charming, but in the archaic design as well.… Expand
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