Star Island

Standard platforming with some design flaws

Reviewed by Shawn from afro-ninja.com

Star Island is a platformer where you have to collect... well… stars. At first glance it gave me a feeling reminiscent of Yoshi’s Island on the SNES, which is pretty cool. The only problem is that the game is designed in a high-score format, meaning you probably wont get to play all the levels.

So you’re this happy face. A happy face with um.. flower petals around it? That’s not the important part though. What matters is that you’re a spinning smiley face, and you have stars to collect. Instead of being a standard platformer your ball acts like a real ball, rolling around the level and gaining momentum off of hills and inclines. There’s five stars to find in each level, and when you get them all you go to the next. The levels are nice and short, but very varied. Many different scenery changes, as well as a few different enemies and stage interactions like springs and water. Back to what I mentioned in the beginning- this game has too much of a focus on high scores. You only get two lives, with three hits per life. After that it’s game over, and you have to completely restart. I think a MUCH better idea would have been to let us keep playing, but just induce a massive score penalty. That way we can see all of the game, but it can still be played for a score challenge.

Graphics are fairly average, with brightly colored levels and menus. The music is very notable, as it very much makes it sound like a happy platformer game. At times I felt like I was loading up the next level to a Mario or Kirby game.

Aside from the game completion issue, my only other problem is that sometimes the enemy hitboxes seem to be a little off. Like, you can do a running (rolling) jump at something and if you don’t hit just right you’ll take damage. Kind of annoying, since life is a high commodity in this game. This game could have had a lot of extra replay value if challenges were added to each level, such as completing it in a certain amount of time or looking for hidden stuff- or in the very least, a level select. Give it a shot and see what you think.

Click here to play Star Island






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