Nonterraqueous (1985)

Preliminary: Wow, great Bomb-Explosion graphic/colors. I am not a fan of the instant death from the white pillars that go up and down, they're used far too much. Yet I found myself keep pushing through and through.

Look: 7/10 Classic Speccy look, nice UI, nothing special though

Play: 8/10 I actually felt pretty good at this! The tight, 6-directional controls helped, but also it's just my type of dodging! Fast-paced but doable. Collision masks were very tight, to boot, reminding me of the early Speccy platformers I so love and doing those pixel-perfect line-ups or dodges or jumps

Feel: 8/10 Really surprised by this one. Considering I was grouchy, regretted not streaming the Kingdom Hearts bosses tonight (tomorrow's my big important evaluation observation, so I told myself to take it easy.... but it just led me to feeling weird all night), and couldn't get into Dragon Buster, despite it being an arcade (more capability) and more my usual type (this has shooter elements, while Dragon Buster is very innovative action-adventure in the vein of Zelda), yet this clicked with me. You never know lol. Some Speccy games in this same vein, proud of their many rooms, irritate me; others, like this and Atic Atac, click with me. Not sure what it is: all the games' colors and controls are usually the same. Same room-based action-adventure concepts. But some just execute them well and make them playable/not too difficult/controls I can master. (Usually I'm not a fan of the touch-anything-and-you-lose health mechanic that is soooooooo common in Speccy/C64 games, but this one does it well.. it's oddly forgiving for the era... and to think the reviews said it was cheap compared to most its contemporary games!... and that it didn't even have a date in the entry on Grouvee--I would have missed this on my backlog, if it weren't for having its sequel Soul of a Robot on my backlog)

Attachment: 7/10 If it weren't for the Solution (walkthrough) available at Tipshop (which is really thanks to Katei Martin from Crash magazine in October 1989), I probly wouldn't love this game as much as I did. But the reality is, I have access to the guide and was able to get past what likely would have been navigation and too-many-rooms frustrations. I was having a lot of fun playing it but Michael got home! The fact I am eager to finish it tomorrow, and not so upset that I didn't stream or play KH (nor can I start my next stream game, cuz I need to stream finishing KH first! what a dilemma ha), says a lot about this game!

Welp on the 2nd night of playing, it definitely held its fun--plus I was close to the end. I will say it started to get that repetitive feeling that all the "we have so many screens! that makes this a good game!" games eventually get. especially when you're just trying to go up or down the shaft or "staircase" type segment getting to Level 30, it definitely felt tacky (thank goodness for the rocket that shoots you up the shaft early in the game haha). Regardless, I kept pushing through --the end was in sight. If only it had a great jingle that'd distract from the unnecessarily high number of rooms.

Indeed, the last string of rooms felt tedious: lots of close calls with the white pillars (which are immediate back to beginning) and those annoying orange walls you can shoot away etc. Thank goodness for savestates. I liked the image for teh computer at the end but in general, the ending was underwhelming after the hour or more I had been playing. A great game, not one I will return to regularly, but definitely worth playing. Classic Speccy feel.

Completion: Main Story Playtime: ~1.5 hours