Genre: Puzzle, 2D Platformer, Adventure, Casual, Action
Studio/Developer: Skrollcat Studio
Hoa is a beautiful platformer game developed by Skrollcat Studio. On August 24, Hoa is released to the world game community. Hoa leaves a good impression and comfortable experience with 2-3 gameplay hours. Although having flaws in the game, Hoa is still a worth game to play.
1. Graphic:
The highlight of Hoa's graphic style is quite clear and obvious. Those are drawings inspired by Ghibli cartoons in Japan. This style gives the player a pleasant, comfortable feeling as a hint of the main theme and plot happening in the game. The scenery in Flowers is also mainly nature, flowers, trees, and plants with 3D-rendered objects in the color background, which is quite pleasing to the eye. The graphics of Hoa are beautiful, but not yet excellent, but enough to show the spirit of the whole game - It's peace and purity.
The minus point of this part lies in some scattered details in the game. For example, the inconsistency in the character creation process or the cutscene at the end of the game has a different animation style than what was shown before. Some character models seem to be designed with independent ideas and do not match with other characters. Some of the animation effects are the same, the final cutscene of Hoa clearly does not match the spirit of Ghibli - which has persisted throughout the game. It is very similar to the Vietnamese cartoon you have seen. Possessing many graphic styles in important parts of the game, Hoa has turned herself into a work of inconsistency and lack of originality.
2. Plot
Hoa's plot revolves around the protagonist of the same name, a fairy who was forced to leave her hometown as a child. Now, she's set off to return and use her magical powers to awaken the vegetation and its inhabitants. And at the end of the journey, the old mystery was revealed. Hoa's plot ideas are supported visually through animations that interact with the environment in the game. In general, Hoa's plot has a fairy-tale features - short, simple, not roundabout but straight to the point. The way the story is told is therefore not complicated. Conveys content and meaning very well, specifically the topic of environmental protection. This is a very safe option and I'm glad Hoa did it.
3. Audio
Again, the sound of Hoa is purposefully selected and inspired by Ghibli animation. This must have been the development direction of Skrollcat Studio from the very beginning when they wanted to put two factors (visual and audio) side by side so that they were both in harmony with the plot and the atmosphere as they wanted. The game's music has a steady investment, very smooth and especially reminiscent of the typical Ghibli melodies. For example: the song The Name Of Life (Spirited Away) or Merry Go Round of Life (Howl's Moving Castle). In general, Hoa's music quality is very good. Still, Hoa's music problem doesn't not lies in its quality but in its allotment time. Hoa lets her song play over and over in a non-stop loop. It is true that these songs do change in tempo and melody when reaching certain areas, but the distribution is still not right. Each track is played in a fairly large screen area, resulting in the player having to listen to it over and over again for a fairly long time. Moreover, their rhythms and sounds are quite similar, easily creating boredom.
4. Gameplay
Hoa's platforming system is quite simple, making good use of the most basic ideas of this genre. As the game progresses, Flowers will give you new move skills like Double Jump, Pushing Object and Fly. Then there will be difficulty gradually increasing with challenges corresponding to the skills that the player receives. In general, they are not too complicated except for the last stage where the laws of physics are reversed, forcing the player to improvise skillfully. This is Hoa's best play. However, this final level clearly reveals the flaws in the overall gameplay design of this game.
Firstly, in terms of Platforming and puzzle design, Hoa's quality is at a good level, but it lacks bright spots and impressive landmarks. The most regrettable and most annoying thing about the player's puzzle solving is providing the map too early. This map is both redundant and lacking in information. Hoa's map allows players to know the general shape of the entire area in advance and also shows the locations containing the targets to be collected, but it does not show the specific structure of the game screen in detail. Exploration becomes useless and time-consuming because the player only needs to go to the markers point and not go to a dead end. This process is repetitive and kills the player's creative exploration. As a result, there are no more surprises, no surprises, no more joy when finding something to look for. The ease and predictability have made most of the gameplay boring, making the bond between the game and the player more fragile than ever.
Next, Hoa had problems with the overall pacing and rhythm of the game. If we had to draw a graph between the difficulty and the player's skill, it would look like this:
In the first half of the game, Hoa's difficulty standard reached too low, adding the ability to increase difficulty slowly, unable to keep up with the progress of the player. Being too secure leads to an experience that is too easy and lacks emphasis throughout 70% of the game. It wasn't until the factory game started that the Platforming part was more dramatic and the puzzles a bit more challenging. The new flower catches up to the difficulty level and wakes players up from their slumber to lead them to the real challenge. Then, pushing the player to a game screen with the idea of reversing physical laws, too new and too strange. While it's great, it's inconsistent with previous levels.
Finally, Hoa has an Escape run in the factory level. Hoa let the protagonist run with speed and drama, but in the form of an animated cutscene, not a game.
5. Total
Hoa does a great job in its role as a casual indie platformer with cute graphics, soothing music, easy-to-understand plot and simple gameplay design. The normality of Hoa still has certain shortcomings such as difficulty distribution, game rhythm, uniqueness, etc. Overall, Hoa is still a game worth playing after your busy and sad days.
Source: Game On! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDhLjNJOAfk
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