I wouldn't call it a 'real' Metroidvania since there is only a little backtracking, but I had a lot of fun in finding hidden treasures. The pixel art is adorable and despite the sometimes clunky combat the gameplay is smooth and satisfying. If you like games like Momodora, you'll probably enjoy this one too.
Of course - it is not Witcher 3 (which would deserve even more than 5 stars). The user interface feels a bit wonky (I use Mouse + Keyboard) and during exploring or combat I'm often overwhelmed by all the hacking possibilities and the overloaded environment. Also those dozens of different skill trees are a bit too much for me. You could really lose yourself in all the details. On the other hand the scale of the world and it's audiovisual presentation (including the characters) is unbelievable. I've never seen a game so close to Bladerunner or Ghost in the shell. Even with all its little flaws it is a great experience and you won't find another game like this.
I've finished the game yesterday (4 hours) and was very impressed by the visual style and the dreamlike, surreal worlds. But in contrast to other artistic games like "Inside" it has shortcomings in gameplay, story telling and excitement. The experience would be almost the same if I had just watched a Let's play video on youtube. Nevertheless I am happy to support projects like this with my money.
I was very sceptical about the rogue-lite mechanics - especially the random levels and the fact, that you loose all your equipment and progress after dyding. Very unfamiliar for a Dark Souls fan ;-). And the first few hours were also quite frustrating for me. Starting all over after 1.5 hours, because some foe infected me with malaise - wtf? It took me 30 hours and a lot of patience to kill the hand of the king for the first time. At a certain point I didn't care anymore about loosing equippment or starting over - it is just a lot of fun to play and it gets really addictive. The controls are smooth, the visuals and soundtrack amazing. It is great to see brave developers who not only try new concepts, but also deliver such an intense gaming expericence.
