After playing this a whole bunch (2/3 through Act II) and slogging through some absolutely hellish bosses and platforming sections, I'm putting this game aside for now. While technically great with immediate Linux compatibility, no software problems and full of lovingly drawn characters, this game suffers from a change in design philosophy compared to Hollow Knight. It is no longer about giving you a challenge and encouraging you to overcome it, it is now about wasting as much of your time as humanly possible. Seriously, this feels like the core concept of the game. - There is a new resource to grind for using tools, meaning if you ever get stuck on a boss, you'll have to go grind that. - Enemies jitter all over the place, making fights against even 1 flying enemy a tedious dance between getting hit by contact damage and never actually getting a hit in. - You will go through a hellish platform segment WHILE beset by flying enemies that shoot bouncing projectiles. After you make it through by the skin of your teeth, you realize this is a BOSS RUNBACK. - Tons of gank-rooms that don't seem to ever end, where just bad luck can make it impossible to avoid taking massive damage. Bosses also almost always spam random ads, because why not. And if you die, you better believe the runback will once again be AWFUL. - Difficult platforming sections also have runbacks. They also used to deal 2 mask damage to make you run back extra often, but luckily at least that's fixed now. - Platforming sections require a skill that consumes the resource you need to heal, just so you have to run back there more. - Difficult platforming sections where the runback is another, lengthy and difficult platforming section - Seriously, this game is OBSESSED with having you re-do content you have already completed over and over and over. Putting this down for now, I feel like I got my money's worth in the early game. Hopefully they fix it sometime to be actually enjoyable.
