it seems the devs wanted to make the game difficult for the sake of retro-difficulty, but forgot to make it fun in the process. backtracking is tedious, as the game is very slow. the main thing killing the fun was how it is never clear whether the roadblock you run against is lack of skill or a missing ability. i beat the first boss and wasn't sure where to go next, as apparently the first gained ability is not the only one focusing on how you get to higher places. other games that focus on ability make it clear, and backtracking can even be fun (look at dark souls). alwa's awakening just makes it a boring chore. i only played about an hour but i'm already burnt out and annoyed. not a great sign.
it will install on linux but if you choose to play it on fullscreen mode, the UI will stop working, leaving you stuck in the menu. If you close the game, a background process "xed" will continue to run with >3GB in memory until you kill it manually. That is unacceptable. It seems GOG stays as dishonest as they have been for years in their compatibility/stability claims. It's really a shame.
I'm sure it's a great game but the GOG version is almost unplayable. Whenever any menus are on screen, the game becomes extremely laggy, making it very tedious to interact with said menus, which is literally what gameplay is about. I'll try the Steam version next. From what I've seen, it might be better.