This is even more the Dark Souls of metroidvanias than Hollow Knight. But every area oozes character, enemy and boss design is varied.
This is a nice metroidvania game reminiscent of older titles in the genre. There are some nice features that add challenge, like swapping suits that you get along the way. There are some features that reveal it's a small-budget title: The game is missing some quality of life features - for instance, there are "save points" instead of autosaves as in more modern games. This means that when you die, you have to scroll through the same dialogue, etc. This was annoying. Also, some animations are a bit clunky, with just a few sprites.
AOW: Planetfall brings the old Age of Wonders magic to a new sci-fi setting. The atmosphere, music and gameplay are as addictive as always, and the game has that "one more turn" feel. However, the AI is still as dumb as in the older games, meaning that games are mostly about you building your own empire, rather than a real challenge against another empire, even on the hardest difficulty. Campaign missions mostly have you running around the map from one easy battle to the next, each time getting great rewards that help you also clear the next mission easily. This stays fun for a while, since the gameplay and music are good, but can also get tedious after enough repetition, particularly since it takes such a long time for units to move around the map. For citybuilding the game really should implement some kind of automated governors - in large maps this aspect of the game can get tedious as well. At least I have not found this function if it exists. In any case, I recommend the game, particularly for those new to the Age of Wonders series, as they will have more challenge. The asking price feels a bit high though, so it may be a good idea to wait for a sale.
Thronebreaker really gripped me with its story and gameplay, though I was not expecting it. Playing on the release version, battles got a bit too easy (and sometimes too long) towards the end of the game. However, there was still a good variety to the battles, most of them were carefully designed. The puzzles were GREAT as well.
Ignore the haters, the new Gwent is better than the beta version. The developer seems committed to the game and keeps improving it also. Would give this four stars (cause it can still be improved), but giving five to balance out the unreasonable 1 star reviews.
