![]() The only thing that mixes things up is a mechanics where certain enemies have color-coded shields, meaning you can only damage them with certain weapons. ![]() They're all just a standard left-to-right path (minus the occasional shoot-'em-up boss), all recycling the same three or four obstacles over and over. All they do is remind you that you're only partially done with the current slog of a level.Įven worse is that in order to account for all of the random elements, the levels in Enchanted Portals are just plain boring. And despite what your little cat sidekick may suggest when reaching a level's halfway mark, there are no checkpoints. You have to stop moving and firing to switch weapons, which requires the directional pad. Loads of enemies and attacks can fill the screen too easily. Timing between enemy attacks can wildly differ. There are levels with ceilings you can hit that make some jumps near-impossible. There's no brief invincibility upon getting hit, so you can get hit about half a dozen times in a couple of seconds. The dash move keeps your momentum going no matter what, ensuring that being able to accurately land is a chore. Right alongside all of the randomness is a load of fake difficulty, either via the sloppy level design or other issues. It's just sloppy design all across the board. Cohesion is completely out the window here, even if it means that enemies can spawn into you with you dash ahead, even if it means that multiple projectiles from off-screen enemies can become impossible to avoid, even it means that there are huge sections of certain obstacles like bottomless pits that drag on too long, and many, many more similar scenarios. Enemy placement, enemy spawns, pit sections, obstacles placement, all random. Not "procedurally generated" or "randomly generated," just random. To get straight to the point, levels in Enchanted Portals are random. Even calling what's offered here "level design" feels generous. And unfortunately, these levels are filled with some of the most tedious, asinine and aggravating obstacles and level design that I've seen in a long time. In contrast to Cuphead mainly being a boss rush game broken up with a few traditional run-and-gun platforming levels, here we have a traditional level-based approach where you go through a couple of stages before reaching that world's boss (save for the final world, which is a boss rush). Tragically, Enchanted Portals poured all of its stat points into charisma with its visuals, and left none behind for the actual gameplay. The only downside is that while Cuphead has an entire world built around various unique settings that felt straight out of a Fleischer cartoon, Enchanted Portals has a more generic feel with its stages, with a token jungle level, a token cave level, a token sci-fi level, etc. ![]() While it doesn't match Studio MDHR's masterpiece, the graphics are still attractive and colorful, the character designs are nice, and it has several moments where it captures the cartoon spirit, especially with its bosses. Let's get to the main draw of Enchanted Portals, and arguably why the game received any attention in the first place, that being its old-school rubberhose cartoon art style. Even more unfortunately, the quality level just continued to take a nosedive. Yes, unfortunately, the actual quality didn't start off with a great first impression. So I started it up, began a new game, and watched the opening cinematic as apprentice wizard Bobby and Penny found themselves attempting to track down a magic book that they used to open up portals to new dimensions that they're now trapped in.or I assume that was the story, anyway, as the cinematic cut off before it could finish. ![]() In the end, all that matters is if that Enchanted Portals is a quality game. Besides, a huge chunk of gaming history is made out of copying what was successful before. It is, of course, completely fair to give a game such as this a chance, even if it feels derivative of a more popular and successful game. There were indeed more than a few people who were willing to still give the game a chance, however, some even stating that it didn't even come across as lazy, as it felt like a lot of work was going into the game. This may be because since its reveal, the game has been slammed as a shameless, lazy rip-off of Cuphead. Namely, the fact that it started out describing the game by saying "Enchanted Portals, which has been favourably compared to Cuphead." You'll notice that it felt the need to specify "favourably." which comes across as a bit eye-raising. One of the things about Enchanted Portals that immediately leapt out to me upon release was, of all things, its press release.
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