Ah, the joys of the early 2000's. Back in the time when sites like Newgrounds or Kongregate ruled the internet with a wide variety of movies and games created in that long remembered and beloved program Adobe Flash animation. I actually got the chance to play around with Flash in high school. My hat goes off to those men and women who used this thing to create some fantastic animation and games. . .but I took an entire course on that in school and I still could not tell you how to work that thing.
Nevertheless, as those who can't do review - I think that's how the saying goes, but then the bear does have the Pope's hat in the woods - and the fact has come up that Google Chrome is discontinuing support for Flash at the end of 2020, I decided that I ought to go ahead and review some Flash games and document what I can about these moments of video game history. Granted, I've already reviewed a few games of the kind, but that was around seven years ago and so much so that I barely remember actually doing so. So for the month of November, and possibly the month of December, I'm going to take a stab at reviewing some of these old games that just might jog some memories for you out there in the world.
What a better place to start than a object that has caused more rage quits than ten year olds on Xbox Live. . .I Wanna Be The Guy.
Okay, this technically wasn't made in Flash, but it is (or was, anyway) hosted on many sites that were big into Flash and ran on Flash, and so I'm counting it. Maybe just call this a freeware gaming retrospective.
. . .anyone remember Ib? I miss Ib.
In any case, I Wanna Be The Guy was made by one Michael "Kayin" O'Reilly, who first released it back in October of 2007. It's known for homaging (and, in some places, directly and shamelessly ripping off) 8-bit and 16-bit games of Nintendo such as Ghosts and Goblins, Castlevania, and Mega Man among others. It's almost known for a difficulty curve that is so painfully unforgiving that I'd argue that it puts all of those games to shame.
Basically, when you boot this game up, you're in for a great deal of pain.
Yeah. Like that. There's literally no joke I can make. It is exactly that. You will die, a lot, and the game will laugh at you for it. Particularly if you are playing on any difficulty setting lower than "Hard", where all the save points will have "Wuss" written on them and you'll be wearing a frilly little 8-bit pink bow the entire time. I'll go ahead and tell you now, without any shame whatsoever. . .I wear that shit with absolute pride.
Why? Because even "Normal" difficulty is absolutely nucking futs!
You can jump, you can shoot, and that's really about it as far as your abilities go. With these powers, you are thrown into an incredibly hostile world. . .and that's honestly part of the fun. Yes, you'll be pressing "Reload" every ten seconds or so (if you're lucky), but the difficulty of the layouts makes figuring out the answers and executing them all the more rewarding. This is really where the game where it's influences on its sleeve, particularly Ghost and Goblins.
It is hard, brutal, and unforgiving. . .which makes working through and finding a way to defeat it all the more glorious once you've done so. Also, I say unforgiving, but the game doesn't have a lives system (something that it didn't take from it's mentors) and that is definitely a good thing.
The source code is available out there, and the game itself is freeware as I said. It's out there. Get it, enjoy it. . .or be endlessly frustrated by it. If you don't give up, if you work through some of the frankly insane trap logic and defeat the six bosses leading into the final one, you can become The Guy.
It's just. . .insanely hard to get there.
Seriously, I invented new swear words playing this game. It's a tough one.
I Wanna Be The Guy was developed by Michael "Kayin" O'Reilly for Microsoft Windows.
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