Unless you like old junky games or you are here for a nostalgia trip, save yourself the trouble and avoid this one. Personally I found this game increasingly frustrating and just not worth the time or the effort. THE COMBAT The combat mechanics in the game are not very good, but that is to be expected from an old game, the problem is, most of the combat mechanics are useless anyway. Most stages in the game will have endlessly respawning enemies, to move forward, you would have to use your chain at said enemies and fling them at objects in the environment. As a result the game plays more like a frustrating puzzle game rather than an action game, as killing enemies is mostly pointless and most of the game is about hooking enemies with your chain and throwing them at stuff. THE BUGS I'll be honest there aren't a lot of them, but I have encountered a couple that were frustarting and that you should know about if you plan on getting this game. First, your character may jump in random directions when trying to jump off a pole for some reason - that makes platforming in this game kinda annoying at times. Second, last time I played I got a blue screen of death, maybe it was just a one-off thing, but I lost about 40-30 mins of gameplay due to that that I am way too annoyed with the game to go through it again.
DISCLAIMER: I am only about 4 hours into the game, but since this game is supposedly about 10 hours long, I feel safe reviewing as I essentially finished about half of it. A lot of the criticism I see in the other reviews of this game point out that the game is a "bad Metroidvania game"... That is because this game is not a Metroidvania game, nor does it represent itself as that (read the game description). If you play this game, expecting it to be a Metroidvania, you will be disappointed, and as far as I am concerned, that is on you. The reason I rate this game 4 stars despite it not being a Metroidvania, is because I don’t like Metroidvanias and despise platformers in general. I don’t like backtracking, I don’t like complicated jumping puzzles, I don’t like enemies that can damage you just by touching you, and I don’t like fighting bosses that don’t have health bars. The absence of all of the above in this game is exactly why I like it. Add to that a decent combat system and you got a winner as far as I am concerned. Essentially, if you are looking for a game like Hollow Knight, this game is not it. What this game does right: the combat system is good, each weapon type has his own set of abilities, which in my opinion, gives the game the same replayability as games in the Souls series. I am currently using a scythe to go through the game, and I can definitely see myself going through the game again with a spear or a greatsword later. This game also allows you to refight some of the bosses you beat - which is a feature that I really appreciate and wish were implemented to more games, especially games were beating bosses is the main objective/draw. As you all should know, opinions are subjective and hard to predict based on reviews, I know some games that sounded great based on the reviews, but playing made me want to stick a fork in my eye out of frustration. My final advice to anyone interested in this game is - DON'T COME IN EXPECTING IT TO BE A METROIDVANIA
