Temple of Spikes: The Legend ($5.99) by Tigrido is a tough-as-nails platformer that places your reflexes to the check. In the event you loved different difficult video games not too long ago, similar to Thumper: Pocket Version and Lichtspeer, then Temple of Spikes is one other worthy addition to your assortment.
As an individual who grew up within the '90s, I can undoubtedly say that platformers all the time have a particular place in my coronary heart. I had the NES and Sega Genesis consoles once I was a child, so I’ve fond reminiscences of taking part in no matter video games my dad and mom obtained me on the time, which have been normally platformers. To at the present time, I like platformers, and I don't assume that's ever going to alter. Whereas I choose bodily buttons for the style, I nonetheless like to take a look at what platformers are on the App Retailer, so Temple of Spikes piqued my curiosity over the weekend. It's a stable recreation with only a few quirks.
App Feels Like
App Feels Like
App Feels Like
$4.99
Thumper: Pocket Version
Drool LLC
$3.99
Lichtspeer
Noodlecake Studios Inc
Visually talking, Temple of Spikes is gorgeous with a singular 2D pixelated artwork type that serves as a pleasant homage to basic platformer video games. It's a pleasant mixture of 8 and 16-bit graphics, and the environments introduced within the recreation are lush and splendidly detailed. The colours in Temple of Spikes are a fantastic mixture of vivid and vibrant with muted, earthy tones. Animations are clean and fluid, with no problems with lag or uneven body charges on my iPhone 8 Plus. The sport's soundtrack is fairly becoming with an adventurous overtone that’s paying homage to Indiana Jones and the like. General, the developer did a fantastic job with the visible and audio design of Temple of Spikes: The Legend.
Like many different platformer video games, Temple of Spikes is level-based. In the mean time, there are 30 ranges, which you’ll simply see on the world map. Nevertheless, although it's solely 30 phases, the sport supposedly holds a minimum of 50 hours of gameplay, so if you need a prolonged recreation, then this can be a good contender. The aim in every stage is to assist an archaeologist discover the labyrinth of an historic temple, discover all the riches that await you, after which make it out alive.
After all, that is all simpler mentioned than executed. The temple is filled with spikes (clearly), lasers, darkish critters, and plenty of different risks and traps. There are even difficult boss battles that await you. Your solely steerage is the ghost of the treasure hunter that got here throughout the temple earlier than you. Every stage is cut up up into a number of components, however there are save factors that function checkpoints, so in case you die, you may simply choose up from the final save level.
The controls within the recreation are easy sufficient, however the buttons do really feel a bit clunky at instances and never as responsive as I'd like. Within the backside left space are two directional buttons for transferring left and proper. Within the backside proper are buttons for leaping, accessing time management powers from artifacts (slowdown, rewind), and different actions, like attacking and inserting bombs when you unlock it.
My downside with the controls is the truth that the default placement of the buttons floats barely above the underside of the display screen. Due to this, your fingers will really cowl up the place your character is, so it's onerous to see the place you're going and what's developing.
You may customise the contact controls within the settings by dragging the place you need the buttons to be, or scaling them so the contact space is bigger. Nevertheless, even once I personalized the controls, it nonetheless didn't really feel fairly proper, and generally the buttons didn't appear to register my enter correctly, so I ended up dying as a consequence of unresponsive controls.
The default character in Temple of Spikes is the archaeologist. Nevertheless, as you play, you'll accumulate cash, which you’ll spend on new playable characters. Some characters can have distinctive talents, like gathering faraway objects or conserving extra blue hearts (time management energy), so that they'll have their very own play type you'll have to adapt to. The higher the character, the extra it should value to unlock. There are not any in-app purchases within the recreation both, so that you'll have to save lots of up these pennies.
A speedrun hardcore platformer with cute retro graphics juxtaposed to extraordinarily troublesome stage layouts.
The Good
The Good
Temple of Spikes is true to the developer's description of a "hardcore" platformer. The sport has moments that require quick pondering, reflexes, and ability to get by, and it's undoubtedly not for the faint-of-heart. The graphics look gorgeous on Retina screens, and the music is quirky and pleasant to listen to. The humor within the dialogue is a pleasant contact as properly, all issues thought of.
The Dangerous
The Dangerous
As difficult as Temple of Spikes is, the controls must be higher for it to be nice. The default format doesn't work too properly with me, and even with the choice to customise, it takes loads of tinkering round to get it proper, which appears to be extra bother than it's price, a minimum of for me. I believe it simply wants higher optimization general to match the hardcore ability stage that the sport requires. Hopefully that is addressed in future updates.
The decision
The decision
Regardless of the issues within the controls, I'm nonetheless discovering Temple of Spikes to be a enjoyable and difficult recreation. The visuals are cute and detailed, the music is great, and the issue is good for what's thought of to be "hardcore." It's not extremely simple, however it's additionally not overwhelmingly onerous. It's an excellent stability, in my view. The huge roster of characters additionally provides loads of replay worth to the sport, particularly since each has their very own distinctive traits. I simply hope to see the controls higher optimized sooner or later.
Temple of Spikes is out there on the App Retailer as a common obtain on your iPhone and iPad for simply $5.99. There are not any in-app purchases.
