Alwa's Awakening

The atmosphere and mechanic feels a lot like Shantae on GBC, but this is so much better. What's great about this game is it follows the recipe of a Metroidvania game: 2D, exploration, ability upgrades, hardcore battling and nostalgic graphics/music. If you like one of these games, chances are you will like this one as well, a lot: Shovel Knight, Hollow Knight, Guacamelee, Shantae. Now the cons. The ending feels a bit rushed. Reading random posts on the Internet by the devs leads to the fact that they're basically a four-people team, working as their part-time job to create this game, for two years. They didn't have time to make a long and epic ending so that's what we got. I haven't played Alwa's Legacy yet but I wish they address it and make perfect sense out of it. There are so many fake walls here and there, but not the most of them have a purpose. In fact, I think a well polished Metroidvania shouldn't have a useless object on the stage. If there's a boulder there, it'd better can be turned and drops a coin in front of you. And this one shouldn't be considered as a spoiler but, of the three magics you possess, one of them never received an upgrade. Imagine your hat got one, your armour got one but never did your shoes. Weird. Not to mention that there are some pit flames of the width of the screen, you would imagine that someday you could ride on your third magic and travel to the other side but no, they did it the lazy way. And some collectable artifacts does nothing. Full stop. And there's a not-so-hidden area who has no place on the world map, if I were to nit-pick the game. The greatest grudge is that you could be trapped in a room in Stone Cellar due to lack of traveling ability. Guess I shouldn't be there so early. But it doesn't lock you in. Load the game and all is fine again. No progression lost. Overall this is an excellent indie game for a very reasonable price. I would rather play it twice than some $60 AAA title. Absolutely fun experience.

First of all, one reviewer complained that this game needs a gamepad because "cannot tap lightly enough with keyboard keys". This is false. The game controls fine with a keyboard, don't get discouraged by that erroneous claim. Sounds like they had a broken keyboard or something. Plus you can redefine the keys, I set them to WASD + JKL . So there's that. Now to the game, I liked it at the beginning, it was comfy with a nice and steady map progression. But as I was exploring more and more of the map, most of the new areas were annoyingly insensitive and frustrating. Hidden walls, bad enemy placement, platforms you can barely jump onto, not thought out waypoint and save locations, very long walks back and forth between areas, cheap deaths and many many dead ends. Add the slow walking on top, and the very slow load times area-transition time. This game tested my patience and I had enough. I was about 43/90 orbs in.

Overall the game plays more slow paced and classic than other Metroidvanias, but that doesn't mean it's easy. Especially in the last 1/3 of the game you have to really focus or you will die easily. All elements fit together very well and match the slower speed.

Excellent metroidvania-style indie title. With an aesthetic, sound and gameplay that reminds us of the golden age of 8bits Alwa's Awakening is a great retro-game. This could be a problem for video-games new generations of players waiting for a faster or more exciting title. The levels design can overwhelm those who are less patient. Dying several times in the same stage (inside a hole, eliminated by a peak, etc.) can be a very frequent option during your adventure. This can lead to the misperception that the problem is in the execution of your controls and be frustrating. Alwa's Awakening stands out for its brilliant strength on every level. However, the graphic and sound section does not stand out much compared to other games 80s. With a difficulty that grows with each level (typical in all video games of this style). Alwa's Awakening is entertaining and solid gameplay worth mentioning. Highly recommended.