First off, compared to what the game game was before the Afterlife update, this is golden. The game has been fully revamped, and it's now 100% a metroidvania. Not so many interconnessions between maps (some places can only be reached by fast travelling), but good number of secrets, good pixel art, and good voice acting (shout out to Crow's voice actor), and lots of movement abilities that define the metroidvania genre. As for the difficulty, oh boy. It's a double edged blade, the bosses and heroic rematches are the very core of the game, problem is, they're hard. I shouldn't compare them to things like final fantasy super bosses, but some of them are extremely close. As you die, your Will stat goes up, and if you reach and defeat the"last" boss with it being over 100 and less than 5 heroic bosses down, you 're screwed, meaning you can only unlock the bad ending. I honestly feel like the Will stat shoud go. It just puts too much pressure, and it has no place to exist. Technically you can still save scum (also defeating heroic bosses reduces the stat by a hefty amount), but it gets boring and repetitive after a while. Some attacks from random enemies can still trigger it. Soldier class easily hands down the best in the game, its passive shield talents are just bonkers compared to the other classes. You pretty much alway want to run soldier as main or secondary class. That being said, the other classes remain fun to fiddle with, and the game usually provides decent equipment toall of those quite early from the start. The game still has some bugs as of now, It never crashed for me, but I'd make frequent backups anyway. Also, play only in english. Every other language has not been updated after Afterlife aired, which means all the descriptions and effects of auras/items are heavily outdated.
If you like platform games with good story, music and graphic, this game is for you. I wouldn't expect such a great pleasure during my session of gameplay, and the price is so low that's ridiculously affordable for everyone.
The forefather of the famous serie, this game is set after the books events, hence the story is separated from the main events. Graphically is still decent, with the combat being a coordinated time-click. Difficulty is quite hard, you need to rely on potions and alchemy to survive on higher difficulty, and ingredients need to be gathered each time, differently from the third chapter, which is a big deal.
