{Review} Transcendence

"Transcendence" by Jtrev23

So this is the first Game Maker game I review. Whatever the developer of this game had to go through, I can emphasize, since I made my games in that engine too. I am aware of its limitations and of the problems you have when developing a game on your own. Also, in my downloading frenzy, I overlooked that there is a bugfixed version on the page. So anything in this review is only true for the official contest version and if I should mention a bug, it may be fixed in version 1.2.

Story
You play as Zyion Drix, a half dragon, half witch hybrid and you trudge through the mountains on a mystical quest. As you may see, it's more in the details where you can find originality in "Transcendence". Why not make the plot a variation on the standard hero's journey, I get to play a character that is half dragon and pals around with a fairy that shoots poison dust.

Mechanics
The first levels are about getting from the left side of the screen to the right side. No jumping is required (and if you do it anyway, you may get to see another level's ground textures). The game puts fruit trees and two kinds of trees that want to kill you in your way.
You have several keys to press, Z,X,C. By the way, and I should probably add that to my hangups, I don't see the point in mapping actions to keys that change on international keyboards, especially if the more trustworthy A, S and D could have done the job just as well.
Anyway, on your first levels, Z lets you should purple magic death and X... makes you turn around? I was wondering why my character looked so nervously over his shoulder until I realised that was a tail whip attack. I may come back to that in the presentation part, but this attack just doesn't feel powerful, more a tail tap than a tail whip.
Your powers increase when you use them and you get to feel more successful very fast.
An interesting twist is that your first boss fight pits you against a flying enemy that joins your party later. Now "Transcendence" shows its hand after four rather samey levels. Now you get to switch between the groundling half-dragon and the flying fairy. And while his feeling is pretty standard "run-jump-shoot" stuff, she can move much more freely and control areas with her dust. Instantly switching between party members with truly different playstyles is a fantastic idea.
Unfortunately, the version I played was unreliable. Saving did not work, and some of the menus were wonky, showing me the attack keys instead of the option I wanted to choose.

Presentation
It is here that my biggest issues with the game lie. As I said, I am a fan of switching team members on the fly. There is also a lot of originality here. Combine that with the fact that there is additional information on the strange hybrid enemies in the menu and you can see that this is a passion project.
But there is no way past it, Game Makers sprite editor is not destined for glory, and as a consequence, the sprites in "Transcendence" have a definite MS Paint feel to them. They look very rough around the edges and these are some big edges. Animation is janky and sometimes gets caught in loops.
I feel like the game lacks feedback in general.
This tree is flashing. Is it supposed to do that? Why?
I just hit an angry were-wolf-lion-whatever thingy with my tail, a gratifyingly powerful sound effect or hit animation would not be out of place.
Likewise losing health does not feel threatening.
There is also some problem with the graphics' reliability. Sometimes the forest floor goes all the way to the bottom of the screen, and sometimes there is a chunk of background shining through. Sometimes the fairy flaps its wings, and then you just navigate her unmoving sprite around.
A positive about the presentation is that the magic projectile you fire not only has a very clearly defined range, its appearance also changes depending on your level. A moment ago you shot a purple wolf-panther creature at your opponents, and then you devastate them with a tornado.
The music got on my nerves initially but I grew accustomed to it later on. Since I am pretty much an ignoramus in matters of game music, make of that what you will.

On the whole...
I am torn. On the one hand I don't like badmouthing someone's passion project. And some of the ideas in here are excellent. The weird world, the switching mechanic, the changing appearance of your spells, the different playstyles... Those are diamonds in the rough.
And like diamonds, they are buried, in this case in a rather unattractive GUI and a lack of feedback.
I would recommend you to give it a try and see if you can forgive the flaws I mentioned to catch a glimpse of the great ideas.
It is my hope that the dev makes another game and really refines and polishes them. I am looking forward to that game.
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Link: http://contest.gamedevfort.com/submission/88#.Vc8VaPntlBc
Link to version 1.2:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8_zAt54zK0AU2F2OWFiTHlyTE0/view?usp=sharing 
Dev: Jtrev23

Time Played: 20 minutes

Got My Vote? Sadly no, because the lack of feedback killed the joy in the great ideas for me.