Alwa's Awakening

For reference - I'm almost 50 and I've already played quite a lot of platformers. Back in the 80s and 90s. If this game was released back in the 90s for Amiga... maybe it'd have its place. Now... it feels like playing on nostalgia by doing pseudo-8-bit tunes and low-res graphics (like most of those "indie" titles do). As generic as it can be. Maybe it has some appeal to younger people who want to "try some classic platforming but without all the hassle with actually playing classic platformers". Maybe. For me it was interesting for the first 10-15 screens. Just to see what is gonna happen next. Nothing much happened next. So that's that.

it seems the devs wanted to make the game difficult for the sake of retro-difficulty, but forgot to make it fun in the process. backtracking is tedious, as the game is very slow. the main thing killing the fun was how it is never clear whether the roadblock you run against is lack of skill or a missing ability. i beat the first boss and wasn't sure where to go next, as apparently the first gained ability is not the only one focusing on how you get to higher places. other games that focus on ability make it clear, and backtracking can even be fun (look at dark souls). alwa's awakening just makes it a boring chore. i only played about an hour but i'm already burnt out and annoyed. not a great sign.

NOT RECOMMENDED. It simply is not fun It is too difficulty-padded to have any simple appeal. A common player should watch a playthrough instead for max enjoyment of this product. Your main gameplay content is watching your death counter go up i.e. you get nothing. The game is 5 to 8 hours long and the side content is collectables. It is a Unity game. You would think using an existing engine would enable more time spent on making content other than challenge screens and you would be WRONG. The gameplay does not change that much from the start to end. The levels are boring and even when you are moving to the right direction, it feels wrong. As most of the game is about artificially difficult platforming, it is a drag to move around, a feature made worse by the back-tracking-intensive level design. The challenge posed by the game is made worse by how slow you move and the angled projectiles and enemy approaches. There is no practical way to block projectiles in most situations. There is no sense of progress or achievement. (BTW, no achievements in the GOG version and the one in the Steam version are milestone and collectable related, nothing too exciting.) The quality of life features of modern game design are not there. If you miss a piece of information, you will never get to re-discover without starting the game from the scratch. The lack of those features reduces the fun factor. You are better of playing other games with such features. Of the same genre, I recommend Castlevania: The Lecarde Chronicles 1 and 2. They are free fan games.

It can definetly pass as a Nintendo game from the late 80s. It´s extremely well done on it´s own simplicity. The only thing that made me wanna quit was that I couldn´t see items on the map for later collection, backtracking gone wrong. But then I remembered there was an "assist mode" back in the main menu and there you get that option and some useful others. Haven´t had a cheap death yet, most of them have been my own fault. So far the game is fair. One thing to mention is that this game doesn´t really keep me entertained for too long. Maybe cause it feels kinda slow comapred to others (which is also part of it´s 80s style I guess). Usually I just play for around 30 min, die a couple of times and leave it for another day. I´m gonna finish it for sure, but maybe it´ll take some weeks. If you like metroidvanias and retro gaming, this is for you.

Alwa's Awakening hearkens to the glory days of NES platformers. The controls are tight, the puzzles are challenging but accessible, and the gameplay is tough but (mostly) not frustrating. It's like I got a whole new top-tier NES game, made modern. The (minor) criticisms are that the music is great, but a little same-y from location to location, and the story is paper-thin. The ending is a little mysterious but doesn't explain much (but hints at a 16-bit sequel). Overall, though, I would unreservedly recommend this game to anyone who's ever enjoyed an old-school fighting puzzle platformer.