Ant-Soldiers (obscure Lemmings clone for obscure handheld) reviewed

[ccexplore]

I've finally finished the first rating of Ant-Soldiers (actually the game uses the term "level" for what we call "rating", and "stage" for what we call "level").  So apparently it is 15 levels per rating, half that of the 30 in the originals (though to be fair, even official ports do not necessarily all stick with 30).  It remains to be seen whether the game has 4 ratings like the originals.

Levels are different from the Lemmings ones, but in some cases are clearly based conceptually on certain Lemmings levels.  And yes, you do get repeats.  For example first level is basically "just dig", and a pair of levels are effectively a version of Fun 6 (the bomber tutorial with blockers) and its repeat Tricky 17 (Diet Lemmingaid, aka Fun 6 without blockers).  There is even a level that's sort of "We All Fall Down" but a little more interesting (you are given a miner, but a number of lemmings will overtake the miner before he mines deep enough and therefore will have to dig to safety like We All Fall Down).  Levels do not have titles, but the passwords are all English words.

[ccexplore]

Worst rating name ever? http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/undecided.gif" alt=":-\" title="Undecided" class="smiley" /> http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/winktounge.gif" alt=";P" title="Wink-Tongue" class="smiley" />

http://imageshack.com/a/img836/7945/wm6i.png" alt="" class="bbc_img" />

(remember that in this game, they call rating "level" and level "stage")

FYI, the other ratings are just "Easy", "Normal" and "Hard".  I had been wondering all along what would come after "Hard".

[ccexplore]

I've finally finished the game this weekend.  There are indeed 4 ratings of 15 levels each.

I have attached (rather than directly link to the images, to avoid spoiling it) the ending.  Unlike the opening, there are a small amount of animation in the ending, but the screenshots is more than sufficient to show what the ending looks like.  The text scrolls throughout the sequence.  Nothing happens after the final screen (it doesn't go anywhere after that and you'd have to reset).

Overall it was a functional clone of Lemmings, and if you compare against the official Lemmings ports on Nintendo and GameBoy, Ant-Soldier is not too bad aside from fewer levels and cruder animations (and maybe slower skill execution) in game.  The level difficulty is interesting--whereas levels in earlier ratings seem less forgiving compared to the original levels (in terms of skills given and save requirement), in the later ratings the difficulty isn't especially harder than the earlier ratings.  The second-to-last level in particular is unexpectedly a fairly straightforward 20-of-each level (almost no other level even give you 10 of one type of skill besides builders) and can be completed using just a couple (under 5 of each IIRC) of builders, diggers and bashers.

Some levels from the original Lemmings game do make an appearance in this game, whether in terms of the conceptual solution or in terms of the level's visual design (or both).  Examples I noted include a few of the "skill tutorial levels", Compression Method I, Let's Block and Blow/Bomboozal, Pea Soup, Lemmingology, The Fast Food Kitchen, The Far Side (though with a major non-glitch backroute), and probably a few more I missed here.  There are a few repeats but nowhere as many as in the official game.  Ultimately though there aren't many levels with standout, particularly memorable solutions IMO.  The level (3-7) that is based on "Compression Method I" is pretty much the height of "memorable, interesting solution" for the game, to give you an idea.

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Aside from confirmation of its existence, there doesn't appear to be a huge amount of written information about it out there.

Well, now that I've finished the game, I can certainly provide any amount of written information about it as you like.  Just ask here!

I'll probably upload the list of level passwords to GameFAQs or similar.  I will attach the list here later today.

[ccexplore]

Likely final post:  list of passwords, and since I can't help but play levels that way, max save % I was able to achieve:

   EASY     NORMAL    HARD     MY GOD
 1 -----    SACHEN    GUESS    BEACON
 2 FACEOFF  COACHER   FRESH    DRAGON
 3 DEADLY   DAMASCUS  EVENING  CLEAR
 4 TODAY    PROGRAM   FACTION  CHINA
 5 BEAD     EMPTY     SUAVE    FRIDAY
 6 LATELY   CIRCLE    KING     TAIWAN
 7 FABLE    DROPOUT   YOUNG    ONLY
 8 CATALOG  DAMSEL    LETTER   VOICE
 9 CABLE    YELLOW    ROSE     ANT BEAR
10 RECORD   DAILY     INSECT   PROCTOL
11 TAIPEI   RAINY     FACT     EIGHT
12 PEOPLE   DAGGER    DISK     CHEESE
13 SMILE    MAY BE    GOODBYE  SUPER
14 ZMODEM   BEAKER    APPALL   NEEDS
15 INDEED   WHISKEY   FACE     WATER

max save:

1-2:  37/40
1-6:  38/40
2-2:  39/40
2-5:  38/40
2-8:  36/40
2-12: 10/40
3-5:  39/40
3-7:  36/40
3-11: 32/40
all others: 100%