Recent reviews by jem

Other players are required to buy this to be able to complete your high five.

This is not mentioned anywhere on the store page.

While I have played other metroidvania games over the years that are amazing in their own ways (Hollow Knight, Bloodstained, Mummy Demastered), Axiom Verge stands out as my favorite by far. It encapsulates what I enjoyed from playing Metroid Fusion / Zero Mission as a kid. Axiom Verge's isolating alien world is masterfully presented through the game's visuals, gameplay and soundtrack (which I still listen to often), being soley developed by Thomas Happ.

While I wholeheartedly love this game, there are a few things to note:

- This game is a bit stripped back in terms of skill based upgrades (lack of a shinespark or walljump to name a few), but makes up for it with its own unique abilities, along with a hefty arsenal of gun types to discover.

- My first playthrough where I "100%ed" the game took me about 12 hours over the course of a week while on winter break. Replacing the tricky shinespark puzzles are now archaic password codes that are not only tricky to figure out, but you also have to find the specific room to use it in. A bit of a step backwards imo.

- Some sounds in this game are extremely hard on the ears, those being enemy screeches and the defection noise. This is a bit jarring especially during some boss fights, where the blood pumping music is drowned out by annoying defect sounds.

- There is a Hard Mode and Speedrun Mode for subsequent playthroughs, but I personally haven't touched them yet.

-Game Maker's Toolkit has an introspective video on Axiom Verge which piqued my interest for the game in the first place: https://youtu.be/ZGWHxQ2WcBE

;_;