Draw Slasher | a Review
originally published on 01/11/2022;
Hello everyone, I am the samurai ninja G.E.M.Simov, an anomaly amongst the Western Easterners, come to tell you about Draw Slasher.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
This game is kinda like Fruit Ninja. It’s kinda like a flash game. It’s simple and concise. The Player is a Ninja. The Player needs to kill Zombie Pirate Monkeys to progress. The way the game is played is by clicking with the mouse.
Clicking with the Left Mouse Button moves the Player Character (PC) to the spot that was clicked. Try not to run through zombies, as they will try to attack the PC, which would damage him, and getting damaged too many times can lead to losing the game.
Clicking and holding the Left Mouse Button, and then moving it in a direction, draws a red line. As soon as that happens, the PC starts walking towards the spot that was clicked. Then, when it is reached, the PC will fly/dash through the air, following the line that was drawn, and attacking enemies. That’s how the Player attacks, and that’s all the mechanics, frankly.
But that’s not quite it. The tutorial does a horrible job at explaining what the Player can and can not do - mainly as a result of telling the Player that one walks by clicking, when in reality the game allows for walking with the A and D keys, which is incredibly useful. That’s a Presentation issue that affects Gameplay - not good. Then, there’s another thing - the Player gains access to special skills (jutsus), and they are accessed via the Right Mouse Button.
Well, not all of them, but that’s all there is to playing the game. Just click to walk places and drag after clicking to hit goonies. Now, the fun of the game comes from fighting goonies and stringing up big combos, for every enemy the Player hits without taking damage grants them a single ‘slash’, and getting 10 slashes grants the PC some experience, getting 20 grants the PC even more experience, and so on and so on.
Experience allows the Player to level up, and leveling up grants the Player a skill point. That skill point can be used to either increase the PC’s health, to increase his stamina, which makes the red lines that can be drawn - the attacks, essentially - longer, or to improve their ninjutsu.
In addition to slashes, attacking enemies - this time regardless of whether or not damage has been taken in between attack chains - generates
That’s all well and good, but what kinds of enemies are we talking about, because if it’s just on the Level of Fruit ninja - goonies passing through - it might be a far more different game to what it actually is. Fortunately, it isn’t like that. The Zombies - those being the enemies - pop up wherever they desire, from the background, whilst being unforgettable while doing so. That’s okay-ish, due to the fact that they need to actively attack the PC rather than just touch him, which is a fantastic thing to implement.
Now, some enemies take more than 1 slash to kill, others take 1 slash to kill but do funky things like fly around very quickly and shoot with their guns, whilst others take 3 hits to kill but only swing at the PC whenever he gets too close. Then there are others who spawn additional enemies, and even more who are invulnerable until they do a specific thing. In short - there is a lot of enemy variety.
Unfortunate as it is, some enemies can be attacking as they’re coming at the Player (out of invulnerability) so that’s an issue. Unfortunately, some enemies can ignore the effects of jutsus. Unfortunate, but it is what it is, and it is problematic.
In addition to all that, there’s some jank in hitbox detection, but that was always going to be so, considering what kind of game this is.
There are even bosses with their own specific mechanics that require different approaches. Most of them are okay, even if some are a bit stinkier than others in certain regards. Here’s the big stinker - the Player can’t use ninjutsu (jutsus) during boss-fights. That’s just nasty.
Now, unfortunately, this game has Presentation issues which affect Gameplay. One of them would be related to boss fights.
Some enemies rely on certain visual effects to choreograph their attacks so that the Player can react to them. Unfortunately, the usual background is a very dark red/brown, so when the visual cue is a black shadow on the dark floor… That’s a bit of a problem, ESPECIALLY when there’s foliage in front of the floor.
There’s also an issue of audio cues - and visual ones - in relation to taking damage. Half the time I can’t tell I’ve gotten hit, I only notice it later when I realize my slashes have gone down to a lower value, or when I get a healing orb.
Healing orbs - those are objects that the Player can slash to restore some health, and they tend to only appear when the PC has taken damage.
So there’s that, generally. There are some issues - such as the jank that comes from the Ninja walking to where the mouse is clicked and then dragged, which sometimes gets in the way, due to the fact that there ARE enemies who do contact damage. There’s stuff that could have been better, but there’s also stuff that could have been worse.
An example is the camera. The camera in this game is atrocious. It moves with the PC, but then sometimes it doesn’t move with the PC. Sometimes, when one clicks and drags, the camera just doesn’t respond until after the PC has finished the slash, and other times it doesn’t even respond then. It’s infuriatingly clunky and quite unpleasant to deal with… But it could’ve been worse, right?
Well, there are two big problems. First is that there are no invincibility frames during a dash - the PC can get hit and take damage while doing that, which is somewhat understandable. Second, and the reason the first one is problematic - there are no invincibility frames following a hit. In most games similar to Draw Slasher, when the Player Character gets hit, they go into a short rapidly flashing mode, in which they are invincible for as long as they’re rapidly flashing.
This not being here is not that great an issue, but because of the way some attacks work, the PC can wind up dead off of 1 hit, even if they were at half their health… Which is a problem.
All those issues are present in the game’s other (non campaign/story) modes of play. There’s the endless modes in Arcade and the challenge modes in… Challenge, which ask of the Player to complete certain objectives in certain manners at certain levels of difficulty. Those are neat-er than the campaign, frankly.
As it is, this is a really neat sidescroller that’s kind of a run-and-gun with a plethora of issues. 2/3
Presentation
This game looks kinda neat, but it has a problem. As previously mentioned, there’s the issue of the Presentation failing quite hard and affecting the Gameplay negatively. Then there’s the issue of the Presentation misleading the Player horribly.
See, there’s a boss fight. Prior to that boss-fight, the Player is treated to a short cinematic showing the boss’ appearance on the scene. The boss then hits the PC (in the cinematic) and the cinematic shows the Player what will happen if they get hit by the boss - they’ll get sent to the other edge of the room. This implies to the Player that these cinematics are useful, helpful sources of information.
Shortly thereafter, there is another boss-fight, which opens up with a little cinematic. That cinematic shows the PC cutting through a pair of tentacles, which wounds the boss. Then, the fight starts and a tentacle pops up from the ground - if the Player tries to cut through it, though, the PC will take damage. Suddenly, the game, which has established through its presentation that it can provide valuable intel via these cinematics, breaks its consistency and presents misleading information… Just because.
Now, of course, this is a single example. But it is more than enough to showcase bad Presentation, and due to the fact that this game has other issues with its Presentation, which issues affect Gameplay… I think you, dear reader, might be able to tell where this is headed.
In either case, I quite like the way the backgrounds and sets of this game are drawn. Each Chapter of the story takes place in a different location, and they all look quite distinct, whilst also being amusing to observe. The enemies themselves are a mixed bag - some really do look like Pirate Monkey Zombies, others look more like Pirate Monkeys, others still look more like Zombies.
The most egregious case is the female monkeys, which do not look at all like zombies and are also, for some reason, sexy. Why? The visual cohesion of the game tanks a few hits there.
As previously mentioned, the game suffers from lackluster sound effects, which is very strange, because sometimes the way sound is used in the game is fantastic - situational audio cues that indicate to the Player from which direction the fast moving zombie is coming so they can react to it, which is very good - but then there’s also situations in which the sounds effects are so bland, so lackluster, so vaguely present…
I’m certain it’s because the sound for performing a slash is accompanied by a grunt, and then the sound for taking damage is an incredibly similar grunt.
In addition to that, there’s music. The music is just okay, it’s satisfactory.
I must comment on the way the characters are all voiced (and depicted), with heavy, almost unrealistic accents, and in a very stereotypical manner. It’s a bit tasteless. While I really like the look of the game, everything else about its Presentation is a little lacking. 2/3
Story
The Player fills the shoes of Hanzo - a ninja coming back home from Summer Training Camp. He gets attacked by a Zombie Pirate Monkey, and then he goes on to cleave through hundreds of those as he goes back home, only to find it in flames, finds the villagers on the Zombie Pirate Monkey ship, THEN it turns out the perp is a samurai who’s mad that the Shogun favors Hanzo’s clan over his.
So then the Sensei of Hanzo sends him off to go duel this Samurai - who’s a demon Samurai, apparently. Hanzo goes to the mountains, climbs up to the demon Samurai’s palace and beats him in a dreadfully long fight. Then he goes back to the village and it’s in the process of being rebuilt… While the headless demon Samurai plots a sequel.
A very simple story, albeit a little nonsensical, suffering from the manner of presentation - some sentences are plainly wrong, others are needlessly crass. It fulfills the main function of just being there, but it’s really not something I’d want to bother myself with. It’s almost porn-level lore, and the bad kind of porn lore.
After all, there is no explanation as to why the demon Samurai not only fights in the exact same style as Hanzo, but also has perfect control over these hordes of Zombie Pirate Monkeys. There’s no reason why the Shogun should be mentioned, as he does not show up at all, other than just to put more Japanese words in the mouths of the characters. It’s incredibly… Lackluster. 1/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? The idea was fresh. The idea, the concept - that was very neat. Unfortunately, the execution was… Not it, chief. So NO, I’m not going to award the legendary point to this game. 0/1
Conclusion
5/10. Mainly as a result of a relatively competent art team, this game manages to be barely average, even if that average-ness leans towards sub-parness for me. It’s a game you’ll probably like if you find the idea of a ninja cool, but have not really bothered with educating yourself. You’d also probably like it if you’re a fan of potentially endless stuff - because this game has modes like that. Still, this is, at best, a short game to amuse oneself with.
I’ve no qualms with putting this one in the bag of mediocrity. It is not too bad, but it is definitely not good. In the dust it shall be left!