Recent reviews by redpoemage

Story and Characters: Very good, some of the best I've seen in a Metroidvania. Some solid banter throughout, but not so frequent that it hurts immersion.

Art direction: Great, loads of detail put into the backgrounds. Also the little

Combat: Solid. Oftentimes I find in games where you switch between a ranged and melee mode, I tend to just use one, but in this game I felt very good switching between the two (even before sheilded enemies that require it are introduced). I will admit that once you unlock a final ability it does get a bit too easy, but that might only be because I was playing on Normal.

Movement and Platforming: Flowed great. Double jump and dash are unlocked form the start, which I'm always a fan of. Just be careful dashing *too* quickly all over the place in new areas, because that led to my death to a trap or spikes many times :P

Exploration: Probably the weakest aspect, as this is a more linear game than a lot in the genre. Still, optional little hidden side challenges were absolutely worth doing and enjoyable.

Some minor performance issues (I had about 5 brief freezes in my dozens and dozens of hours of gameplay), but otherwise it's just more peak Elden Ring. Story-wise, I enjoyed it more than the main game.

Exploration is very well rewarded, and necessary unless you're very very skilled.

Normally not very into this type of game (I bounced off of Deep Rock Galactic when I tried it for example), but something about the gameplay loop for this one definitely hooked me. Difficulty options are decently wide, and made better by the amount of optional objectives so that to some degree you can decide how hard you want to make things for yourself even when you're already in a mission.

Best gone into completely blind.

As others say, this game is dated, and the combat is...meh at best.

Supposedly, it has a very nice story. Unfortunately, due to the game crashing every 5 minutes, mainly during cutscenes, I gave up on experiencing it. After trying a bunch of things, I managed to get the game to crash only every 10 minutes.

Some games are worth powering through constant crashes to enjoy. I did not find this one worth it.

Easily the best Metroidvania I've played, and easily one of the best bang per buck (in terms of highly enjoyable hours) games I've ever bought.

Atmosphere is a 10/10, and once you get used to the playstyle you like the game flows like butter (minus when you feel like butter getting repeatedly smashed into the ground like a hard boss, but that makes overcoming it all the more thrilling! If you get stuck, I recommend looking up a guide for optimal charm setups, since that can change for different bosses sometimes).