All of the humor feels like what an incredibly generic reddit user may find amusing, and ironically this results in the games grabs for personality feeling boring and seen before. The cats and cutesy representation of zombies, especially convey this. All of the personality results from beloved internet cliches. While humor is subjective though I found the elements used in Three Dead Zed to be incredibly tired and boring. Another thing that sets games apart from each other is a distinct tone, and the way which Three Dead Zed does this is through its humor. There's respect to be found in the way in which Three Dead Zed tries to capture a personality and apply it to the game. It's honestly quite embarrassing as saws sometimes don't even kill you leaving a baffling sense that no one tested if all the objects do their job- which some do not. Hit boxes are hard to detect, and sometimes hazards will just not work at all. Checkpoints are placed sloppily with no thought, with the rest of the game carrying on as you're set back to boot. I wouldn't even say the game is designed well technically. The feeling of progressing in Three Dead Zed does not fit well with how a puzzle platformer should feel, and indeed how many other games should either. When you beat a level in Braid there's a sense of achievement, but here, no matter how hard the puzzle may be, there's no such sense. In games like Braid, the puzzles are hard, but are well telegraphed and displayed. Puzzle design is something that's hard to critique but this reasoning works within the relation to the feeling upon beating a level. It really says something about a games design when you sometimes don't even know what the puzzle even is, let along how you should solve it. This leads to a lot of backtracking across drab levels as you try to find something you missed that may give you a clue. Sometimes you won't even realize you're doing a puzzle since it adds no challenge and isn't communicated as one, and sometimes you won't be given any tools to find out just what your goal even is. The same goes for the puzzles which fluctuate between incessantly dull and baffling. This isn't a case of using logic to determine how to get somewhere, it's a case of having to stop yourself continuously to end up anywhere. This is easily solved by switching to another zombie quickly, but at the rate in which you have to switch just to get anywhere, you'll find yourself having to stop to change abilities constantly. Climbing up ladders for example is very tedious as only one zombie has the power to do it. Just getting from one spot to another can be an annoyance since it's only the simple things that these abilities apply to. Since all three zombies can only do incredibly specific things it becomes more of a chore to traverse the small environments you're put in. The levels themselves don't really tax the brain as they do your patience. This type of gameplay is most suited towards platforming puzzles, which could work in this game as it has in the past, if not for the incredibly specific designs attributed towards this mechanic.Įnvironments like these, while a good idea in relation with the zombies, just come off as dull in execution You can choose between three types of zombies, a regular zombie who can climb ladders, an agile zombie who jumps higher/ generally faster, and a female brute, who can pick up heavy objects and kill enemies with more ease. The idea of traversing a level with the ever present option of changing to another character with a specific set of skills has been seen in games like The Lost Vikings. When regarding the former it's important to note that its core idea has even been seen before. It does this mainly through its core gameplay mechanic, and noticeable humor. Like it or not Three Dead Zed exists in this market, so its attempts to differentiate itself are completely justified. So it is with this in mind in which Three Dead Zed is critiqued. While in the end this is a good thing, the situation does demand that any independent platformer has to stand out from this crowd to be truly noticed or appreciated. For one reason or another this aforementioned type has become a trend amongst these independent developers, resulting in a host of new platformers for the modern consumer to choose from. With the rise of affordable and quality indie games, there's a new slew of platformers for those partial to the genre.
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