Sparklite

From the inspirations and games listed on the store page I expected much more from the game. First I'd like to start with what I found good. The pixel art is beautiful, very colourful and interesting to look at and the soundtrack is great and fits each area of the game well. Mechanically the game is solid: movement and combat feel good the platforming segments don't feel like a mistake was the games fault, etc. and the gadget equipment system is interesting. Here's where the game starts to fall short: The randomisation of the world just doesn't do much, maybe you see a new screen here or there when the world regenerates but for the most part it's pretty much the same every run. The craft-able weapons have very little use outside of the few randomly dotted puzzle items around the world. Going back to the gadgets, while the system is interesting there are only a handful of them to equip and with limited space you mostly fall back to damage and heart increasing items. On to the boss fights: The 4 bosses are just really easy, only have about 2 patterns each and after a few defence upgrades barely scratch you... except the final boss fight which comes out of nowhere with a HP sponge boss with a second phase that's just a mob gauntlet, quite a difficult one at that! Some of the games enemies are really spongy or deal a lot of damage to you and guess which ones got into the final boss fight! Coupled with the fact that there are very few opportunities to heal (consumable healing items are kind of rare to come by and hearts are near non-existent drops) made the final fight just stupidly hard. All of this happens in the span of about a 5 hour playtime and I don't really see much of any replay value here. Maybe it's just me but when you cite Zelda as an inspiration I instantly expect puzzles and dungeons and unique upgrades (that have a use!) I know I'm not supposed to discuss price but at it's current one I just can't recommend this game.