It took time to come to grips with using the enivornment to control the mobs, but once you get a handle on the strategies and spacial awareness on the run, as well as all the tricks up your sleeve, it is silly chaos at it's best. The highlight for me was the arena mode, where enemies, hazards, arenas from the game are used with an addictive negative/positive modifiers that help diversify your use of the mechanics.
This game gives me flashbacks to the tedious difficulty of the original NES games. Even with assist mode, which only partially mitigates the wasteful backtracking and obtuse locations of collectibles, the game leans too heavily on catering to high-end experienced players. Not nearly as much as La Mulana, but certainly a game for veterans of puzzle platformers.
First two hours leads me to believe the game is like Myst. I try to take my time, enjoy the view the dev team worked so hard on, and then I get range attacked for my troubles. I try to kill what attacked me to enjoy the view, but I run out of ammo. My only recourse is hiding and waiting in a drab corner. Feels likes I'm punished no matter what I do.
