Lost Ruins

Is this a metroidvania? Yes, It is a weird metroidvania? yes, fight monster girls as a magical school girl, get your teeth kicked in and learn how to bamboozle your enemies withperfect dodges and flashy spells. The biggest flaw of the game is that is too short, with only seven bosses it will left you wanting for more. Even tho it looks and feels like a metroidvania it has several design choices that set it apart: - there's no constact damage fronm enemies, unless they are using a rush attack - Dodge move from the get go to avoid enemy attacks and become a deadly tickle ninja if you choose the dagger path - usind a 2 handed weapon won't prevent you from equiping a shield in your other hand, the Zweihander is your best friend!! - You cannot move while attacking and attacking mid air will stop all your momentum, this may be a controversial design decision, but trust me, the game was spoecifically designed with this handicap in mind. - character progression is heavily determined by equipement, there is no XP or character levels. Bosses drop relics that increase your stats, but the vast majority of enhancements will come from equipable gear and how it synergizxes with your weapons or spells, so you better look for all those secret rooms and grind that gold to buy all the gear you need. - The postgame is fantastic, after beating the game you open new game modes to play as a pure melee or caster, you even get to play as three of the boosses, switching between them depending on your needs. - Unfortunately changing gear won't affect the appearance of the character except for the swimsuit and the maid costume. In conclusion, a short metroidvania that may look frustarting and unappealing, but give it a chance and it may win your heart like it did with me. I give it 4 stars because there are a couple of minor bugs liike sound levels resetting and control going berserk unless I use DS4windows.

I haven't finished it yet(5 hours in, 4 bosses defeated, as a new player i started the game in Veteran Mode). First off, this isn't a Metroidvania, is a 2D survival souls-like game. You have to learn to play the game by its rules and not play it like if it were a Metroidvania. There aren't unlockable powers or level up systems. Instead you get weapons, spells, equipable items and consumables that you must manage because they are scarce. Enemies sometimes drop money and most of the time drop consumables which you can sell for money so, there still an incentive to kill them. The combat is slow(it can feel "clunky") on purpose but you get used to it and it make sense, its engaging and tactical since enemies can kill you very quickly if you miss calculate. There are enviromental hazards which affect both the player and the enemies and almost elements interacts with the enviroment, electricity can electrocute anything that is touching water, you can lit oil spills with fire, you can burn poison spills to get rid of them, if you are burning you can throw yourself into water to stop it. The only thing i haven't liked so far is the autosave system, specially before bosses since you have to re-arrange or re-equip the items that you figured out that help you to progress easier in the boss battle. You will die a lot in boss, is a matter of error and trial and strategy.

A weird 2D action survival game where you play as a twee schoolgirl fighting creatures and anime girl bosses in a ruined castle. . It starts off slow and very unforgiving but once you get used to the limited combat, it gets a lot easier, although the difficulty and balance is all over the place due to the overly aggressive status effects. There’s a variety of enemies, weapons, spells and equipment but most of the stuff isn’t useful and the menu makes selecting items awkward. The multi-phase bosses are a good challenge and offer beneficial rewards but get really annoying when you keep dying to them and don’t really stand out as great. The pixelated graphics, cartoon characters and minimal plot serve their purpose and the sprawling map offers some exploration but the lack of music and repetitive settings lack atmosphere. The campaign play length is a good and the achievements and post-campaign content add significant changes to the game which are worth completing as long as you can put up with the clunky combat and other shortcomings.

Though many reviews are calling it such, this is NOT intended to be a metroidvania. While the map is big and exploration heavy, there are plenty of warp points and none of it is dependent on what equips you have. While there are some secrets and backtracking, almost all of them are for chests that (kinda spoilers) you are incentivized not to go after. It does play like one of the earlier Castlevania games otherwise. TLDR - kinda slow 2d side stroller with weak controls and strong focus on items and synergies. Overall, this was a decent game (3.5*) but not one I would recommend. The main appeal are its many weapons, items and equips. You should be constantly finding synergies and ways to cheese encounters. For example, using thunder or ice in water damages everything in the water, including you. But if you are immune to that kind of damage... Controls are awkward and even after beating the game I still would not feel comfortable trying to move, roll, jump, and attack together. I would concentrate on two and "switch styles" to deal with attacks. Melee is supposed to be kinda weak as it doesn't consume resources, but after you get reliable ways to get mp or returning ammunition, you rarely want to use it. It is quite slow, especially with block being so useful and later on you basically want to recharge after each kill. You can go much faster and skip a lot but first time through you often want to go carefully and thoroughly. Enemies do a lot of DOT to basically waste your resources, ie using an antidote every time you are poisoned as the DOT can be over half the damage. Bosses are both the fun and annoying bits as they often have attacks that basically 1hko you in the harder difficulties if you're caught. It kinda has to be that way as later on you can do the Skyrim style of healing by eating a bunch in pause menu every time you are hit. Jumps are not great and the platforming parts are thankfully fairly short but unfortunately plentiful.

Basically you are too dependant to mp and hp regen, using any other loadout is a hidrance. The boss fights consist to spamming all the healing item that you hoarded through the levels. But this game does also something good, but this wierd choices it can only be considered a mixed bag for me.