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So* I recently found this game called "Lyle in Cube Sector", which was recommended to me when I asked around a metroid community for more so-called "castletroid" games (non-linear exploration-based games).

It's definitely a castletroid, complete with accessing new areas by gaining new abilities, and non-linearity in that you don't just get to access one new area by gaining a new ability--you get to do a LOT of exploration in the course of the game. The areas are very highly interconnected and very suited for non-directed exploring (if you pay attention to this aspect, you'll see why I don't consider games like Mega Man Zero and Cave Story to be castletroids). And there are many interesting features, but you'll definitely be motivated to get them all. The game has its own quirks, including some that can't quite be explained--but that's of course partly what makes the game possible and unique. There's also some silly humor in the game--in particular, pay attention to what kills the bad guy.

The difficulty is reasonable in this game. I found no part of it exceedingly easy, although I did sometimes find some rooms to be rather annoying. The bosses, though, seemed very reasonable. (There just aren't that many of them, though.)

There are several fun minigames within the game that occur not as part of the main gameplay, and there are also two "secret" locations.

Unlike Cave Story, where the plot is one of (or probably the) centerpiece, the plot here mainly seems to merely justify why the action is taking place. The game is kinda set in a place that doesn't make too much realistic sense, but makes perfect sense in terms of gameplay. The plot simply provides a motivation for the events of the game.

Some drawbacks, though, include the fact that you always start off at the center of the map (at your house), and you always start off with 5 HP and half-max CP. Additionally, the map is big enough that the number of warp points doesn't feel like enough considering that it's actually not that easy to go from place to place--you don't level up or gain any special damage-reducing armor, all you get to do is to increase the number of cool things you can do, and increase your HP. Additionally, watch out when using green blocks--if they're the least bit in motion, you'll get hurt when you touch them.

An initial playthrough will probably take several hours--five or more, depending on how fast you get the controls and how many times you get Game Over'd in the process.

The music perhaps isn't the greatest soundtrack in the world, but it's definitely fun. You might get a bit sick of hearing certain tracks over and over again, but that happens in other games and is more a layout design fault. The music tracks were actually, as the game's creator emphasizes, not written by him, but taken from some (probably indie) digital music site. The music style is somewhat like a Commodore 64 game's, but with better instruments.

Also like Cave Story, you have a single save slot which you automatically save to, but you can easily download more than one copy of this game if you really need to. Besides, there's only one ending--two if you count the variant that (according to what I've read) you get if you don't get all the items. But you shouldn't need a walkthrough. A Google search got me the last tiny bits of information that I probably could find myself if I put more effort into it, but I didn't care enough to scan every inch of Cube Sector to find the last HP and CP orbs, and the rest I found simply by exploring.

Oh, looks like I've provided you with a review of the game without actually showing you the game. Well, it's at the following website, and it's a little freeware game, so you'll have to worry about neither illegal downloading nor hard drive space.

http://www.sitesled.com/members/bogo/lyle.html (the creator's main page)

For reference, here is the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyle_in_Cube_Sector

*So I was recently criticized by someone other than my high school English teacher for starting a sentence with "so"...but I maintain my stance that sentences may be started with "so". Perhaps not in written language--especially not formal written work, but in spoken language, I have no problem with it.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Old thread, but I gotta say that this game is very fun. I just opened the cube jump ability, and I'm likeing it so far.

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.