Timespinner

The art and animation is fantastic, the platforming and controls are super tight, and it's an overall very solid Metroidvania game. So, why did I rate it 3 stars? 1. The time stopping mechanic that the game is named after is barely used. You have access to it from the very beginning of the game, but about 90% of your uses for it occur in the first 2-3 areas. After that, you'll very rarely be presented with a puzzle that requires you to briefly use it to get access to an otherwise unreachable area (but even then, you get a double jump later that renders it almost entirely moot). You can't damage enemies when time is stopped, so it's not useful in combat other than to dodge a projectile or something, but enemies telegraph their moves pretty blatantly, so I never needed to do that. 2. You can switch between a lot of different types of weapons which level up as you use them, but realistically you're just going to pick the one you like the best and use it for the whole game. Each has its own damage type, and each of the 80 enemies in the game has their own resistances and vulnerabilities, but it doesn't make enough of a difference to bother swapping loadouts. 3. The game is very short. I achieved 100% completion in about 15 hours. You could finish the game in much less time than that and still get the best ending. 4. It's too easy unless you use the most extreme difficulty option, but you'll have to complete the game at least once to unlock it. Unless you're hardcore in love with the experience, you're probably not going to go through that again. It would be nice if that difficulty were available from the beginning, because I think it's a more appropriate challenge for experienced genre fans. Boss fights don't demand much strategy other than spamming your attacks or spells. You can access the inventory at any time (which pauses the game) and chug healing items to your heart's content. I almost never had to use a healing item in the entire game, though.

It's EXACTLY like those Castlevania games on the Nintendo DS, down the UI. The weapon and quest system is somewhat similar to Order of Ecclesia to be precise. Sadly, the difficulty is pretty low though. Still, the game can be lots of fun. Note that there are minor LGBT themes here and there which DO SEEM like needless pandering (did we really need a lecture on polyamory?), but they're easy to ignore and never the focal point. Beating the whole game with 100% completion should take no more than 10 hours.

There is a plot somewhere, but most of the time you are gonna be talking with NPCs about their gender, frivolous sex life and shipping gay guys. And the "main plot" is scattered across many letters that you have to find. For such a short game it's quite a lot of reading. But most importantly actual gameplay is really good. It's really similar to Bloodstained, with that awesome feeling of overpower and lightning fast traversal abilities you get near the end of the game. Looks good, feels good, but story is all over the place and it's quite short, like 6-10 hours.

Disclaimer: I was a kickstarter backer for this in 2014. Timespinner plays like your run-of-the-mill 2D side scroller. Its very heavily influenced by the SNES game Super Metroid and the PSX game Castlevania Symphony of the Night. The pixel art style is very reminiscent of the SNES/Saturn era of Console games. The style is very clean and polished yet retro feeling. Timespinner looks, feels, and play like a game from the mid 90s. The Music and Sound kind of break this illusion though as they are far beyond the sound and music fidelity that you would expect from a game that was made in the 90s Timespinner is relatively short at about 5-6 hours if you rush through it. If you want to 100% and grind a bit to see all the lore and capabilities of various weapons/abilities You're looking at 12-16 hours. Many of the different areas you explore feel like they are too small. In Timespinner your weapons to fight with are "Orbs" which perform different things. They start off simple like a punch attack. Later Orbs can shoot projectiles, auto lock-on and hit enemies, conjure swords/hammers, and one Orb just hits everything nearby your character. Many of the Orbs are functionally the same, but with a slight gimmick. I found around 13 different Orb types. There are also "necklaces" which can be crafted themed to each orb time. These Necklaces grant a charge attack ability. These are much more unique than the generic orb attacks. Lastly you can unlock "rings" which provide passive benefits themed to each orb. Sadly there is often not much of a reason to use one Orb over another. There are benefits to all of them, but it feels over developed given the length and scope of the game. The Story starts off as a Revenge tale and evolves a little from there, but sadly gradually starts shoe-horning in SJW ideological politics out of nowhere. This kind of breaks the feel of the story and lore as these politics are extremely out of place. Overall Timespinner is a good game with flaws.