UFO 50 Mini Reviews 1 - Barbuta This is one of the "bad on purpose" ones, I guess? But I do find it strangely compelling. It's got a good feel of mystery and exploration, and I like all the weird details that imply a deeper lore (eggs? altars? weird bean shopkeepers?). The slow walk speed, kinda BS puzzles, and lack of music really hold it back though. 2 - Bug Hunter It's Into the Breach, made in the 80's! Strategically buying new abilities mid fight is a nice touch. I really like the moments where you discover mechanics, like "oh you can push dudes in holes??" Some of the abilities feel a bit overtuned (shoot all elevated areas) and again no music is rough. But it's a fun one! 3 - Ninpek Fine, but forgettable. I do enjoy the twist of rescuing a sandwich rather than the traditional damsel in distress. 4 - Paint Chase This is the first of several games that I started out hating, but grew on me by the end. 25 stages seems brutal to lose all progress on, but once you learn the mechanics it's really not so bad to get back to where you were. Feels like an evolution of pac man which I think is neat! 5 - Magic Garden It's ok. The difficulty curve ramps too slowly for me, so your first 80 or so dudes you rescue are pretty dull. I could see this improving if you're aiming for cherry score, but I just grabbed the gold and moved on. 6 - Mortol The first real banger of the collection. Love this take on Lemmings, really creative puzzles and solutions. They get a lot of value out of 3 simple abilities. Also really appreciate that you can go back to previous levels to improve your score without restarting the whole game. 7 - Velgress Upwell! Had a blast with this one. It nails the feel of "okay I died again, but I can definitely do this, one more run!" I wish the roguelike elements were a little more fleshed out, the abilities you can purchase feel mostly irrelevant. Good music, the soundtrack starts to take off here. 8 - Planet Zoldath This one is like... baby game dev's first video game. I get the feeling this is here more for lore than anything. At least it's short! 9 - Attactics I like how it's a strategy game with a frantic pace, kind of like playing blitz chess or something. Good unit variety keeps things fresh and it doesn't overstay its welcome. Solid! 10 - Devilition Neat idea for a puzzle game. How nerve wracking is it when you spend 30 minutes setting up your chain and you're trying to remember which one is the first piece? I don't think it needed to have such a punishing game over when it's so easy to make one small mistake and ruin your whole chain. The final boss is a welcome change in pace but way too easy. 11 - Kick Club It starts out as a cute little arcadey game, and then you realize it's so goddamn long and extremely stingy with extra lives. The early worlds are too easy to make replaying them fun, but you have to pay maximum attention because losing a life is horrendous for the later game. The music loop was driving me a bit insane by the time I cleared this. 12 - Avianos Pretty fun! This would make a cool board game imo. I like the different dino gods, I like how your choices each round are simple, but with a wide variety of strategies. This is high on my list to go back and Cherry. 13 - Mooncat What a weird fucking concept, I love it. Feels great when you get in the groove and master the controls, like you've picked up an entirely new skill and your mind is expanded. idk what a Mooncat is but I think the mystery is a perk. 14 - Bushido Ball This is some good stuff, shoutouts to Windjammers. The single player is fun enough but you really gotta do multiplayer to get max enjoyment out of this. So many cool strats to try and counter-strats to develop. Kind of a shame it doesn't have music though. 15 - Block Koala Ugh. If I had to delete one game from the collection, it would be Block Koala. The basic idea is unexciting, and for some reason it's 50 stages long. Move speed is way too slow. The one song in the soundtrack is probably the worst song in the game. Hated it! 16 - Camouflage Now we're talking, *this* is a puzzle game! Never played anything quite like this. The mechanics are simple but lend themselves to a lot of depth. Using the enemies to block other enemies line of sight was a great moment. Wish it was even longer! 17 - Campanella Another 50 stage game, you say? Back to the beginning when I game over, you say? (PTSD flashbacks of Kick Club) Thankfully this one is merciful with the extra lives and the little UFO is fun to control. Also it has unique music for each world so that's an immediate massive advantage it has on Kick Club. 18 - Golfaria My arc with Golfaria: Beginning: Oh, what a neat idea! Golf Zelda? A little later: Oh holy fuck why is it like this, I hate this. Mid-Game: ok, ok. Stroke upgrades and Brakes help a lot. Perhaps I've judged you too harshly. Late Game: ...this sure is a big world to putt around, huh? End Game: Pleaaaaase where is the last tee, I'm so sick of this, please end! 19 - The Big Bell Race I mean. It's fine. But kinda feels like Derek was running out of time to make 50 games and had to throw one together in 4 hours. The AI is pretty braindead too, it's a shame it never gets challenging. 20 - Warptank Another cool puzzle game that makes Block Koala look increasingly terrible, haha. I really like how they managed to make each level feel unique without ever changing the basic mechanics. Only problem is the world map sucks, would have been better as just a simple list of levels to select. 21 - Waldorf's Journey These kinds of rage games are not really my genre but the power ups help a lot and the concept of a dreaming walrus is weird enough to earn a few points from me. 22 - Porgy I wanted to like Porgy, but it's too tedious. The upgrades come too slow and are rarely exciting. Hunting down the bosses is tiresome and the fights themselves are not very good. Having to constantly traverse the same areas over and over to go get air gets very old. With a little work I think this one could be great but sadly it's not there. 23 - Onion Delivery This may be Stockholm syndrome setting in, but I went from absolutely hating this to kind of digging it? It's for sure one of the toughest games in the collection, but it feels great to roam the map once you've memorized it and gotten good at driving the car. Some of the events are over-the-top bullshit; you definitely want to get the overflowing sewers early in the run. 24 - Caramel Caramel Not a shmup guy, but I ended up liking this. Stage 1 is the skill check, if you can beat that you can beat the game. Good thing stage 1 has such great music ( https://youtu.be/Bc6Pm75CAFw?si=8RMm83dhniKOev1P ). I think it's pretty strange that extra lives don't do anything in stage 1... maybe a mid-level respawn point could have been good? But it's fun. The camera system is unique, adds an interesting layer to an otherwise vanilla shmup. 25 - Party House Oh we party house in here. I don't need to extol the virtues of this game everyone loves. It slaps, man. I only wish it had scaling difficulty, more cards, more scenarios. More. More! 26 - Hot Foot Listen, I really like dodgeball on the NES (and GBA) but this ain't it. The AI ally is so maddeningly stupid. There's too many times you get stunlocked and take like 5 hits in 3 seconds. Or where the goddamn coach throws a can at the perfect time to intercept your shot and ruin your life. The controls are frustrating, way too many overloaded commands on only 2 buttons. Pick up the bag! No! Don't switch characters! Goddamn it! Maybe this is good in multiplayer or something idk. 27 - Divers What are we doing here? This one has to be another that's intentionally bad. It's cryptic, slow, boring, grindy. Pretty much no redeeming qualities? 28 - Rail Heist This is a fantastic idea for a game that is slightly spoiled by execution. Another one where there are too many actions bound to too few buttons. The number of times where I wanted to grab the dynamite and ended up punching it, or to pick up a box and end up punching the ground... ugh. That said, It's cool how many different ways you can solve problems, and also how it's a stealth game that rewards being able to improvise. It's amusing how you can sometimes phenomenally miscalculate and drop a safe on your own head. 29 - Vainger They put a whole ass metroid in here? Holy! The way you can configure upgrades in different combinations is great. The gravity switch mechanic works really well. The bosses are a bit of a letdown, and I wish the map just worked like super metroid. But it's a star of UFO 50 for sure. Theta sector music so good: https://youtu.be/qEQ24rCNU3I?si=o0htDNKTtbiX89_n 30 - Rock On Island I like tower defense games, and this is a fine one. It doesn't really bring much new to the genre, and I found the chicken management to be slightly obnoxious. But! It's relatively short, you'll have a good time playing it. 31 - Pingolf It's fine, but I'm not crazy about it. The dunking mechanic elevates it above a simple golf game but it needed something else to push it over the top for me. I often found myself wishing the game was zoomed out to see more of the stage without having to pan back and forth. 32 - Mortol 2 I like where they were going with this, it's an interesting evolution of Mortol 1. Unfortunately I think having one big level to explore was not the best way to showcase the mechanics. I played like 90% of the game with just ninja and gunner - would have been nice if more of the classes were generally useful, or if the areas were more set up to require you to combine their abilities in clever ways. I did like the game, just felt it fell short of its potential. Mortol 1 is simpler but does a better job of maxing out its gameplay mechanics. 33 - Fist Hell Streets of Rage 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, and boy do I wish Fist Hell was closer to that. The lack of invincibility frames in this is nuts, leads to scenarios where enemies combo you to death out of nowhere. Most of the items and special moves feel pretty useless compared to just doing your basic punch combo. The last fight in particular is heinous with how chaotic it gets. I am glad they don't make you 1cc this for gold. I also think it gets by somewhat on vibes - the areas look good, the zombie apocalypse setting is fun, the soundtrack is good (though can't compare to Streets of Rage unfortunately). It's memorable but very flawed. 34 - Overbold This would have been one of the best games in the collection with some more content. Even with just one area and a handful of enemies it's pretty high up there. It's my number one pick to spin off into its own full game, even over Party House. The push-your-luck gameplay works really well for a roguelike, reminds me of Hades' heat system. The upgrade tree could use some work, I found myself sticking to the same few upgrades every time (bombs, lure, and then damage reduction). 35 - Campanella 2 Hello Spelunky meets Blaster Master in space! Loved this one - the different routes are cool, the length of the game is good, lots of fun secrets to find. Gameplay is heavily punishing but always makes you want to spin up another run. The level generation can be somewhat unfair, and I wish there was more variety to the on-foot segments. Again some of the upgrades feel too strong, which limits variety. I'm always taking the "extra coin up", "kills give fuel", and spread shot. But for me the good outweighs the flaws by a lot. 36 - Hyper Contender Easiest gold in the game after Bell Race, maybe? I don't have a strong opinion on this one, feels like I need to spend some time playing multiplayer to get a real sense of it. 37 - Valbrace The combat system is such a good idea and fits surprisingly well with a dungeon crawler. Unfortunately this became a slog. I can only wander around lost in a dungeon fighting the same monsters for so long. When the phantom knight boss combo'd me to death for the third time, I felt my soul struggling to escape my body rather than have to go back and fight 85 more orcs and slimes. Didn't care for the soundtrack on this one - listening to one song for hours on end doesn't help. Very cool ideas, but actually playing the game is frequently unpleasant. 38 - Rakshasa Very fun! As a guy who's played a lot of classic Castlevania and Ghosts n' Goblins, this is a good take on one of those (and for once in UFO 50, it's much less difficult than its inspirations). If I could make one change it would be to buff the Seeker and Spread power ups. As it stands I feel like the fireball is the one true powerup for every scenario. 39 - Star Waspir Probably the hardest gold in the collection for me. Stage 3 in particular is such an outlier in difficulty with the crazy enemy and meteor spam. I enjoyed Star Waspir, but would have preferred if your hitbox was a little smaller, or if misspelling a word didn't end your bonus streak, or something to tone it down slightly. I used the gray ship with the seeking drones. Seemed like the easiest one to rack up a big multiplier, which seemed like the best way to get through stage 3. 40 - Grimstone Very much enjoyed this. My party was Lee, Maria, Doc, Anne, and I ended up happy with all of them. Anne is a big liability early game, but turns into the MVP for late game bosses. I do think it's too grindy, even for this style of RPG. For example, in Final Fantasy 1 you can just mash a button 4 times to attack through trash mobs. In Grimstone you gotta press a button 4 times, and then press 4-16 more buttons with good timing, and that's a lot of effort to kill a low-XP trash mob fight that got in your way. Would've been nice if Salt lasted longer or something. I also think the new moves and abilities unlock a little too slowly. On the positive side, I like how the equipment in this game really matters and makes you care about money. The little unique character vignettes are small but effective. The story is simple but good. 41 - Lords of Diskonia This was great! The AI is a bit cheaty, but I rarely had to replay a campaign stage so it was fine. I wish you could zoom out in the battles to see more at once. I like how many units there are and the wide variety of styles you can use. I think this would be cool to try mutliplayer. I've also heard cherry on this is a bitch, but I can't speak to that. 42 - Night Manor What a huge outlier in the collection! Very different style, and a breath of fresh air. The atmosphere is good, the story is simple but compelling, the puzzles are (mostly) sensible, the progression is great. My one complaint would be that the killer is not threatening enough. After catching you a couple times he turns into more of a nuisance than something to fear. Still, I liked it a lot! 43 - Elfazar's Hat I liked Pocky and Rocky as a kid and always wanted more games in that style. And here it is! Surprisingly easy, but I'm not complaining too much, there are enough ass-kickers in the collection. It also has one of the best soundtracks (including this Train one which tragically only plays for a single short stage: https://youtu.be/8FnlN-EhwEY?si=eMQKl0dhflJbpfiQ ) The style of this game speaks to my soul somehow. Like... you ever wanted to be a bunny girl in the 80's, standing on a moving train, blasting pumpkins out of the sky with magic spells? I can't explain why, but the answer is yes. 44 - Pilot Quest Ok, discovering that there's an idle game in the collection is a pretty cool moment of UFO 50. I'll give it that. However, if we look at Pilot Quest itself as a video game? It's not even a good idle game. The exploration part is just trumped up planet zoldath, which we've already established is not good. It's a one trick pony, and then you're left with nothing much. 45 - Mini & Max Best game in the collection. The shrinking mechanic was cool, but once you get the second level of shrinking? Mind blowing. The world in the closet is surprisingly deep, with all the various factions and societies. The characters are simple but manage to be endearing without much dialog. I like how many ways there are to approach problems - like you can fight the cockroach with rocks, or you can shrink, find an evil virus, and then use a giant evil virus to kill the cockroach. Neat! Absolutely perfect length too, and definitely worth getting the cherry. Really fun that it ties in to Party House too. I'd pay the price of UFO 50 just for this one game! 46 - Combatants This one is busted for lore reasons, I guess? The friendly ants' AI is broken, and for some reason they're like 3x weaker than the red ants? Your only choice is to cheese the enemy AI which gets old after a couple times. Wouldn't it be cool if there was a secret terminal code that like... fixed this game? 47 - Quibble Race Amusing, but certainly one of the weaker games in the collection. It's a lot more fun to watch someone stream this than to actually play. 48 - Seaside Drive Best vibes in the game, hand down. Have you ever just driven along the coast at sunset with your windows down and some good tunes? This game gets it. Speaking of tunes - stage 4, anyone? Banger! I'd dodge killer whale waves to this all day, man. https://youtu.be/Kk1obe962q4?si=Qi0NSWw4zFEQg1HI It's a shame it isn't more difficult, I'd be down to play this over and over. 49 - Campanella 3 Not gonna lie I was hoping this would be more like Campanella 2. It's fine for what it is, the difficulty feels good, and having to juggle enemies in the distance as well as enemies on the same plane as you is a neat concept. 50 - Cyber Owls Bonus points for ambition. It's kind of a mess, but also somehow works? The stealth sections are not my favorite, and I don't think this game needed limited continues. It'd be better if the individual stages were harder, with unlimited continues. But the final mission where all the team is working together is pretty damn rad. Like imagine if the NES Ninja Turtles game had been like this? That shit would've been an all-timer.