Recent reviews by Rine

One of the best remakes I have ever played. Faithful to the original while being far more accessible due to updated graphics and controls.

The best Metroidvania since Hollow Knight.
Great visuals, great music, great puzzles, great overall level design, and quite a lot of inspiration from the best Zelda games. I was absolutely hooked from beginning to end. The biggest surprise for me was the length; this game took me almost as long to complete as La-Mulana 2 at about 56 hours.
The combat can be a bit difficult, but if it's too much for you, the developer has added in a difficulty/accessibility option when you start a new game which can also be changed at any time.

I just started the game for the first time in a while, went to build a new coaster in a scenario, and while there were over a dozen roller coaster types to choose from, I could use only three of them; the game informed me that I needed to purchase DLC to use any of the other types. I know this is partially because the game limits the coaster types you can build in scenarios, but I still hate this practice of dangling DLC content in front of the player's nose. At least include an in-game option to hide DLC content so that I don't have to scroll through it in menus.
I suppose it's worth it if you are willing to spend the $150 or so to buy everything (as of writing), but the base game's content feels absolutely anemic compared to RCT3 (even before its expansions) and other theme park games.

This one should have stayed buried. I purchased ZAR after recognizing it as one of the many games I played from demo disks in the late 90s, thinking it would be a fun, nostalgic romp. Unfortunately, the game is very frustrating to play. Terrible controls (even if they are arguably intentional), annoying game mechanics (like small bits of rock or debris from explosions causing damage long after the explosion has ended), and repetitive levels make this a game I cannot recommend.

If you enjoyed Symphony of the Night and the GBA/NDS Castlevania games, you'll love this.

Had a lot of fun with this game. The world was fun to explore and there were a lot of nifty secrets to find. Seeing enemies explode into increasingly large chunks of gold will never get old.
The controls were pretty good, but it would be nice if I could have used the D-Pad instead of the analog stick on my XBO controller for some of the more precise platforming sections. Key rebinding would have been good to have too, but Autohotkey worked fine for that.
I will say I didn't really care for was the music. None of it really stands out; it all just seems like mediocre filler. To be fair, they were going for the sound of the Sega Master System, Wonder Boy 3's original system, and it does sound like music you'd find in a game on that system.
Overall, a good Metroidvania, and one I recommend.

I couldn't finish it. There's one extremely annoying design decision that ruined it for me.
It's a very stealth-focused game; alerting an enemy usually means alerting all nearby enemies, shortly followed by your death. The problem is that for some reason, it was decided that some weapons should have a random miss chance where, even if you make a perfect head shot, the game decides you "missed" and the shot doesn't count. Not only that, but whenever this happens, all nearby enemies are alerted, even if you're using a silent weapon like a bow. This makes the game very frustrating, and I cannot recommend it.

If you enjoy exploration and puzzle solving in your games, then this is the game for you. If you don't want to play a game that may require you to read a guide to progress, I recommend you still play it. Just make a rule for yourself--something like, "I will only look at a guide if I am stuck for longer than x minutes," and stick to it. You'll still feel immense satisfaction from defeating bosses and completing all the other puzzles that you manage to solve without a guide.

If I had to compare this game to another, I'd say it's closest to Rogue Legacy. As in RL, you can spend currency to upgrade your character every time you die, so death doesn't feel like such a huge setback. Also, the world is randomly generated with each death (except for certain rooms like the ones where you find bosses and upgrades).
In some ways, I enjoyed it even more than Rogue Legacy. The incredible art and animation led to some truly breathtaking vistas, and I was awestruck when I saw the absolutely massive bosses.
The combat is fun overall, but it could use a bit more depth; at certain times the best option was simply to button mash or repeatedly use one technique over and over. The cannon also doesn't seem very useful.
Overall, an excellent game, and an interesting combination of Roguelite and Metroidvania.

There are a number of changes under the hood that make custom content creation and server administration easier and more powerful. I think it's worth buying just to play the new single player modules and servers that will come out of this.