This is an indie 3D stealth action game, and yeah, it’s pretty janky. If you’ve played games like Styx, this is a much lower-budget take on the genre. The cartoony graphics are okay—not great, but serviceable. If you’re just looking for another stealth game to mess around with, maybe grab it on sale. Gameplay isn’t all that fun. Your movement is pretty limited—basically just sneaking, running, and the game’s unique mechanic: dashing from shadow to shadow. You also get some magic abilities that burn through your magic points. Guards are super predictable. Checkpoints are way too far apart, which made me not want to experiment with different tactics at all. And then there are the action sequences. No idea what they were thinking. There were some bugs too. While dashing/teleporting, I fell into lit spots where I couldn’t get out multiple times. The boss even got stuck (literally) at least twice, forcing me to restart the fight. Level design could have been way better. A lot of areas are dull and way too big for no reason. There was one section so large I almost stopped playing. There’s barely anything to pick up—just some upgrade scrolls. No doors to open, no objects to break, no lore items, no notes, nothing. The environments feel empty, and you just want to get through them as fast as possible. Same tropes are repeated until it is no longer fun. Do you want to disable a light barrier? Nice - how about you do it ten times? Music is okay, but the audio mix could have been better. Some sound effects are way too loud and annoying, while footsteps and ambient sounds are almost non-existent. For a stealth game, that’s a big problem.
I found this to be a charming top-down Metroidvania with smooth, responsive gameplay and adorable characters. It starts off strong with snappy controls and a solid foundation, but over time, the repetitive design and lack of variety in environments began to hold it back for me. That said, the Metroidvania elements are well-executed, and the game respects your time. While the level design and boss battles are above average, they didn’t quite suit my preferences. Despite its flaws, I think fans of the genre will enjoy it, as it’s one of the better top-down platformers out there.
Shantae and the Pirate's Curse delivers a classic, metroidvania adventure with a moderate playtime. While it does involve some slightly tedious backtracking and hidden object hunts, it shines with its gorgeous graphics and delightful music. The core gameplay centers on running, jumping, and defeating foes using your hair, which unfortunately lacks that satisfying punch. However, the game compensates this with a variety of abilities you can get later in game. Unfortunately, the very late-game difficulty spike and poorly placed essential items might deter completionists, I had to resort to guides for the last 3 items which I were missing. The controls are precise, and the game maintains a smooth performance throughout. The narrative has a comical tone reminiscent of Monkey Island games. Be prepared for plenty of cutscenes, which may be a hit or miss, but fortunately, you can fast forward through dialogues. Platforming is relatively easy, but there is a sudden spike in difficulty late in the game. The save system is reasonable, with respawn points near pits. Game features battle rooms and a boss fight for each area, and even a New Game Plus mode, but the game lacks achievements and cloud saves. Visually game is reminiscent of '90s arcade games and best console 2D games, although high resolution art is used for cutscenes and the user interface, while the in-game visuals utilize a neat and colorful pixel art style with fluid animations. The characters, both enemies and NPCs, are charmingly animated, ranging from cute creatures to attractive female characters.
I would rate this game a 3.8 out of 5, if that were possible. Not to my taste but relatively ok old school 16-bit imitation game. I never had access to expensive consoles, which means I missed out on most of the Nintendo 16-bit era classics. Shovel Knight draws inspiration from the 16-bit era console games, with its limited color palette, animations, pixel-perfect movement etc. While this nostalgic approach works well for its graphics and music, I wish they had taken a more modern approach to gameplay. The boss battles, in particular, left me wanting more. The character movement in the game feels pixel-perfect, but I'm not a fan of characters that feel as clunky as a refrigerator. There's no double jump, and you only get access to limited "dashing" in the late game. The game often places enemies next to pits, ensuring that you'll take hits and lose coins when you die. This design choice frustrated me as it felt like it was being used to its maximum annoyance potential. On the bright side, the world-building in Shovel Knight is quite nice. There's a typical map where you select your next destination, and there are towns where you can upgrade your gear and interact with townsfolk. I appreciated the ability to revisit locations, which allowed me to grind the first area for two hours and max out my character. While this may seem slightly sloppy in design, it was a welcome option, as I found myself reluctant to revisit other areas due to their frustrating design elements, such as automatically scrolling sections. Boss battles were rather average. For instance, in one early game boss fight, the lights are turned off, leaving you with only 50% of the screen visible. Bosses are faster than your character, and the visibility of their projectiles is often weak. This made me resort to pogoing on most bosses while praying they wouldn't do something nasty. The final boss had better design and provided a more enjoyable challenge.
After completing all the game areas 100%, I can say that the game is good but not a great platformer. The visuals still hold up remarkably well, even in 4K. The music is also of high quality. The story revolves around saving a forest, which isn't my preferred type of story, but it's okay. There are no NPCs to interact with, story progress happens in cut scenes. The game is surprisingly challenging, especially in the late game, considering its Disney-like visuals. The late game introduces numerous movement mechanics which have to be utilized. The emphasis is on demanding platforming, featuring plenty of puzzles - with a huge amount of spikes, which I personally dislike. Fortunately, you can save your progress almost anywhere. It feels quite old-school that each main "mission" includes a scripted escape sequence instead of a boss fight (there are no boss fights in this game). It reminds me of something from the old PS2 era, like rail shooters. Initially, the movement feels too soft, because of the animation style. especially if you're coming from a game like Hollow Knight. However, halfway through the game, it became less of an issue. Melee attacks behave like homing lasers of some sort, later you'll also have some jump/throw attacks. Most enemies are generic glowing, blob-like creatures with fast animations and attacks. The visuals are somewhat overdone, with glow and animated haze present everywhere, even in the menus. Motion blur is enabled by default. The most challenging late-game levels feature image warping and heat distortion, which I found really annoying. In many areas, it's also difficult to discern which objects can cause damage, particularly in the fast-paced sections, until you become familiar with the area. You can achieve 100% completion in each area using the map system (which is well-designed) after the credits roll. There's no New Game Plus mode. It's worth noting that there are no achievements either in the GOG version of the game.
I think Momodara had so many shortcomings, playing it was somewhat tiresome. You might like Momodora if you are into anime art style, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected. Graphics are OK and unique in style, probably the best part of the game. Especially human characters and most of the backgrounds are quite well done. Story is there, but there isn't much of it. Character designs are all over the place (kiwi like birds and cat girls with scythes), but that didn't bother me. Level design is somewhat generic, and some areas feel like draft versions. Game in general is quite short and minimalistic, it takes a couple of evenings to finish the whole game. Biggest issues I have are related to gameplay. Enemies spawn into rooms and each every time you enter a room. Some enemies are small and/or blend into background. Enemies throw projectiles long distance away from screen area. Controls feel sluggish. Melee hit range is short, combos suck you towards enemies and you'll get contact damage, hitboxes don't feel that good. Save game is very old-school and punishing. Spikes for example mean instant death, you lose progress you made since the last save. Boss design feels hit-and-miss, some are OK, most don't have interesting attack patterns. Giant witch girl with big boobs (which feels like a major selling point for this game) is pretty much the only larger boss, while most bosses are player size or medium size. Telegraphs are not very clear or are too minimal, and many projectiles are really transparent and visually messy. These things make some boss battles a bit tiresome for casual player. Changing spell items is cumbersome. I didn't do this at all during boss battles I like the fact that developer added easy mode - I tried the normal mode, but because of the above mentioned reasons, I restarted the game in easy mode. There is also a map and late game allows you to fast travel, and there is also a new game plus mode after finishing the game.
Death's Door is a game that I find hard to recommend as I have mixed feelings about it (I did 100% the game). Game has very high production value. Beautiful graphics, OK music and good audio, lots of stuff to find. There is a lot to like. However there are several things that ruined the experience for me. Death's Door is a Zelda-like game with soulslike fighting mechanics. Bosses and some bigger enemies are quite hard and take your health if you are careless. This results in backtracking as the only save point is the area entrance door in most cases. There isn't enough health ever (no health potions in this game), maybe only in the very late game, and you are punished for dying - you have to traverse the levels (there are shortcuts to open) again and again - and it gets really grindy. You can't even jump (only roll), yet there are many battle rooms with moats and water, and of course you can fall into those which will take a health block. Levels are vast, some with maze-like structure and have occasional hidden items to discover (some vital to survival), yet those are very few and spread around. There is also post-game stuff to do, which is nice. Sadly post game tasks require a lot of (did you guess?) walking. At this point I caved in and read the guides. Blood-effects can be disabled. I wonder why those are in the game to begin with. Devs didn't really think about accessibility. Now late game will not be experienced by those who can't get through tougher, fast paced and relatively grindy battles. It shouldn't be too hard to add easy mode (or an option to skip battles after certain amount of tries) to a game like this.
