map = castlevania
combat and level up = darksouls
skill tree = path of exile
can combo classes = grim dawn
lot of gear, sets, itens, bosses, everthing you need in good game.
can be hard in normal play but you can play easier reducing enemy health and damage them cause.
Mandragora is a side scroling souls-like RPG.
With great artstyle, good story and gameplay.
That is untill you reach the middle of the game.
When that happens the gameplay start to crumble bit by bit, and by the end is simply ridiculous.
Let's start with the rifts you encounter and are mandatory to continue the game.
They require to finish them in certain time and perfectly, otherwise you start from the start.
In order to have more time, you need to find certain ingredients, which some are hidden or behind optional bosses, and make you to look behind every nook and crany like it or not.
Then came the death of the character.
Every time you die, you leave your acumulated experience to be collected and resurect at a spawn point, which is ok as in any other souls like game.
The annoying part is, when you die at a boss fight, and then do not ressurect at the boss but at the other side of the area, and then have to trek and fight all the way back to the boss, for just another atempt.
Next comes the characters themselfs.
All martial classes are useless.
For fighters if you decide to block, you do not block the entire damage, you always get hit, and considering especially by the end all attacks carry status effect, makes the block pointless.
If you want to play rouge like character, you are simply on hitted.
On top of that the damage these classes are doing is nothing compared to the magic users, which can spam fireballs and kill things even outside of the screen.
And the last thing is the end of the game.
Where all of the enemies are the same as before, with the same move set and skills but their armour, health and damage is simply multiplied without any comparison to your character level or skills.
They are buffed just because.
I really wanted to like Mandragora.
The style, the world, the story are really intriguing, but all of the above short comings did leave a sour taste.
I would advise to wait before all of the above things are fixed.
Look, first off, ratings are subjective. Do I give this game 5 stars because it's perfect? No, it's not perfect. Do I give it 5 starts because I enjoyed it immensely? Absolutely.
This is a soulslike metroidvania that knows how to be both of those things. Fights are enjoyable and responsive and I was compelled to explore the maps thoroughly. There's a vast selection of skills and abilities to use when performing acts of violence and enemies drop the things that they are wearing, which is something I greatly appreciate for some reason.
No other game has had me looking forward to my next session as much as this one did recently, which is really the best thing a game can do.
Firstly the good parts, the art style, the music, the voice acting, sound effects and music, the character progression system and even the the narrative and lore are all excellent. The level design Is about average for this kind of game.
What isn't so good is the platforming and some of the bosses. While combat is great, platforming by contrast feels clunky for some reason, there are also sections where you'll have to jump blindly onto timed platforms, also many of these sections are against the clock as your health diminishes. Also annoying are instant death booby traps and platforms that kill you if you touch the bottom of another platform. This gets even more annoying when you get the double jump.
The bosses are a mixed bag, many have two phases and many have annoying mechanics that feel cheesy or even cheap. One boss took me a day to beat and the final boss took me three days. In fact a lot of reviews on steam specifically mention the final boss. All I'll say is the difficulty spike of that boss is jarring.
Despite Mandragora's faults, after beating it I kinda wish there was more and that's the sign of a good game. This is now probably my second favourite Metroidvania after Vigil, the Longest Night. Mandragora is a game that will frustrate the hell out of you while your playing it but when it's finished you'll look back on it fondly.
having bit of issues with controller and button lag issues that makes it a bit frustrating for example the dodge button randomly does and attack or my 3 skill always jumps and not use sloted skill or when i press the run and jump button it windows my game client wierd stuff like that. i have two bitdo controllers and issues presist when i switch