Treasure Adventure World is a metroidvania platform game set in a fantasy world of islands, magic, pirates and secrets.
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DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I went in expecting a small metroidvania, but it turned out to be a big adventure game with a couple of metroidvania elements.
The beggining of the game is quite slow and linear as you get a grasp of the main mechanics, setting up the expectation that the whole game will be a linear experience, but soon after the game opens up allowing you to go and explore pretty much most islands, although most dungeons will be gated by either the shovel, its upgrade or the very versatile magic bottle.
Once you have gotten access to all 3 of these tools, however, you are enirely free to tackle the rest of the game in whatever order you wish and it will all start falling like dominoes. The NavPearl would be amazing if not for the fact that you can just find the items without them. It would be cooler if you had to dig in specific but incospicuous places so that the pearls were actually necessary.
The game is also full of secret crevices. They are fun and satisfying to find, although I wish they had had more unique collectibles in them since most of them contain just chests full of coins.
The coins themselves are used to buy a couple of hats with unique properties, which is cool, and to buy and decorate a house, which is really just a money sink. And even after having bought every single thing available, I finished the game with over 3000 coins to spare. I guess I was more thorough than most at finding secret coin chests, so I was surprised to see a money farming guide even exists.
Speaking of farming, one of the items you must collect are enemy drops. In my experience, however, they required no farming. Just killing all enemies on each screen the first time through was enough to have all of them dropped. I am unsure if I was just lucky or if it is hard-coded to be this way. If so, I am happily impressed.
Having the final dungeon be something that opens up slowly as you keep coming back with more mcguffins is a cool idea, but it was so out of the way that after my first visit I didn't go back until the end of the game.
Oh right, the story. It was... meh? The main character has no dialogue and no personality (two things that are not always linked to each other), the parrot has a designated conversation button, but it is reserved as a hint system instead of making jokes or comments about the current room that could have shown more personality. It was aesy to figure out who he really was, but that might just be because of enough knowledge of tropes. The flashbacks and introductory cutscene were great, if a bit long. Other than that, the god vs god story is just an excuse to have the game happen and that is ok.
Overall, the game was quite enjoyable. It gave way more freedom than expected. I'd be more likely to compare it to a Zelda or an adventure game more than a metroidvania.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I went in expecting a small metroidvania, but it turned out to be a big adventure game with a couple of metroidvania elements.
The beggining of the game is quite slow and linear as you get a grasp of the main mechanics, setting up the expectation that the whole game will be a linear experience, but soon after the game opens up allowing you to go and explore pretty much most islands, although most dungeons will be gated by either the shovel, its upgrade or the very versatile magic bottle.
Once you have gotten access to all 3 of these tools, however, you are enirely free to tackle the rest of the game in whatever order you wish and it will all start falling like dominoes. The NavPearl would be amazing if not for the fact that you can just find the items without them. It would be cooler if you had to dig in specific but incospicuous places so that the pearls were actually necessary.
The game is also full of secret crevices. They are fun and satisfying to find, although I wish they had had more unique collectibles in them since most of them contain just chests full of coins.
The coins themselves are used to buy a couple of hats with unique properties, which is cool, and to buy and decorate a house, which is really just a money sink. And even after having bought every single thing available, I finished the game with over 3000 coins to spare. I guess I was more thorough than most at finding secret coin chests, so I was surprised to see a money farming guide even exists.
Speaking of farming, one of the items you must collect are enemy drops. In my experience, however, they required no farming. Just killing all enemies on each screen the first time through was enough to have all of them dropped. I am unsure if I was just lucky or if it is hard-coded to be this way. If so, I am happily impressed.
Having the final dungeon be something that opens up slowly as you keep coming back with more mcguffins is a cool idea, but it was so out of the way that after my first visit I didn't go back until the end of the game.
Oh right, the story. It was... meh? The main character has no dialogue and no personality (two things that are not always linked to each other), the parrot has a designated conversation button, but it is reserved as a hint system instead of making jokes or comments about the current room that could have shown more personality. It was aesy to figure out who he really was, but that might just be because of enough knowledge of tropes. The flashbacks and introductory cutscene were great, if a bit long. Other than that, the god vs god story is just an excuse to have the game happen and that is ok.
Overall, the game was quite enjoyable. It gave way more freedom than expected. I'd be more likely to compare it to a Zelda or an adventure game more than a metroidvania.