Islets

This game has a lot of charm. From the art-style, to the music, to the characters. Pros: - Boss fights are interesting and introduce bullet-hell mechanics - Charming art-style and characters - Fantastic music (I'm hoping it gets released on Bandcamp/etc.) Cons: - You can face-tank bosses towards the end, so they don't last long enough for you to remember attack patterns (especially once you increase your damage) - The "challenge" rooms you stumble across once in a while are very easy and offer no challenge. - Some upgrades you pick up are useless (looking at you, double-jump attack). - A certain ability is used maybe twice after pickup (very situational) It took me a little over 7 hours to 100%. Don't expect an experience akin to Hollow Knight, but it will be a pleasant one nonetheless.

This is a little metroidvania game with anime-esque aesthetics and well tought mechanics. Even if a bit short, it is fantastic for the price. Pros: - Boss fights and plataform challenges are complex but not frustrating. Its all learnable patterns and little to no randomness. - Good music - Art-style is really nice to the eyes, and cute. Story is wholesome - Controls responsivenes is perfect. Cons: - If you take up too much damage upgrades the difficulty starts watering down - 100% in 12 hours, so it is short. - It wouldn't hurt to have more secrets other than upgrades and coins. - As nice looking as the maps are, some rooms feel like map filler.

Very lovely game that combines anime aesthetics (got some studio Ghibli vibes out of it) with metroidvania gameplay. The gameplay is very polished, clever and above average, though admittedly not the best I've scene in the genre. What really brought the game to another level for me was the very successful merging of a cutsey eastern anime feel (the story, the mechanics, characters, map design, music, opponents... they pulled all the stop to immerse you in the anime style of the game) to the more traditional metroidvania mechanics of the game. This makes the style of this game rather unique and comparing it to other metroidvania games would feel like comparing apples and oranges in some way. I finished the game in about 10 hours so it is on the shorter end of things. The difficulty is adjustable and at normal, felt like easy (though admittedly 2-3 fights made me sweat a little). If you're mostly a mechanics and strategy kind of player, you might not dig the game as much, because while there is some depth (you can dash, crouch, swing your sword in different directions, do a charged attack, do a downwards attack that pounds the ground, use 3 different kinds of arrows, fight some simple aircraft battles and you have plenty of unique enemies that often need to be tackled differently) they don't push that envelope as much as many other metroidvanias I've played. I'll say though that what they've implemented here is solid: there are no bugs, everything is smooth and there is no frustration so great player experience overall. However, if you're at all into story and atmosphere (and you like at least some cutsey animes), you really ought to play this. The story and characters will make you smile and so will many of the opponents you have to tackle that are very stylish, the music is great and will mesh well with everything and the level design is gorgeous and complements it all beautifully. This game is both fun and a work of art. I highly recommend it.

It's like Sheepo except bigger better and with more sword fights.