I wrote in a review a while ago for A Girl and the Robot what a shallow copy of Ico it was and simply playing that instead was better than the unimaginative clone that came many years later. The thing is that wearing your inspiration on your sleeve isn't always a bad thing and in the case of Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (who named this? Were they trying to get a good scrabble score?) I think it's obvious Symphony of the Night references are somewhat to the game's credit for making it a fun little Metroidvania title. Having said that though the way the titular character Deedlit moves, her first few steps, her backdash leaving a ghostly shimmer, the long hair, She's almost a palette swap of Alucard from Castlevania. There is taking inspiration, then there is getting out tracing paper.

Still, it does bring some unique mechanics into the game on it's own merit. Deedlit can swap between two different elements regardless of the weapons she wields of fire and..wind?. This is used for both fighting enemies and finding their weakness as well as puzzles and bosses where being on the right element being hit by it allows you to escape unharmed as well as build up spell power. It's a cool little system that in some ways reminded me of aspects of Ikaruga. I wish they leaned into this mechanic a little harder though with more creative puzzles, platforming and bosses using it, maybe an extra element to boot rather than just the two. It's a clever interesting little system giving it a unique selling point, it's just kind of underbaked.

The rest of the game is a pretty standard affair of exploring and backtracking to unlock the map getting new weapons and armour and fighting bosses. Some of the bosses as mentioned above are genuinely pretty good fun, though you can abuse the elemental mechanic on some of them far too easily. There is a dragon that only throws fire at you you can be immune to in fire mode that constantly generates you mana so you just spam spells in his face whilst invincible for example. A few more require tricky changing of elements and timing between attacks to hit which I enjoyed far more and would have liked to see developed further for more memorable fights.

That's my issue generally actually, the elemental aspect could be better, the fights could be better, the map could be more interesting. It's a good game, I had fun with it but it feels like missed potential wrapped up in a completely nonsensical story for anyone not familiar with the manga or anime I presume.

Somewhere inside hides
a compelling score of 10.
Fleshed out and built up.

Vibrant colors fall
like leaves enveloping the
labyrinth in charm.

Beckoned to explore,
find secrets, and discover
truth, this was heaven.

Yet an ending came
for which I was not prepared.
I still wanted more.

A second act was needed.
Perfection, just missed.

I think we take for granted how easily obtainable anime is today. The 90’s tape trading scene was vital for anime gaining any sort of a foothold in America, proving that there was indeed a market for this sort of thing. But by the early aughts, what was suitable or even marketable to American audiences was still being figured out. It was a wild time. While audiences were largely beholden to what was available in their local video store or the whims of TV executives and what they deemed appropriate for broadcast, you were just as likely to be exposed to something as tame as the TV edit of Dragon Ball or (like me) be thrust into an existential crisis at the ripe age of 14 because you rented The End of Evangelion.

There was this understanding, however, that so much more anime was out there, existing just out of reach. Record of Lodoss war always occupied that fringe, fuzzy area for me. Something I have long been aware of, but as a consequence of that time developed more of a mystique. When I learned that Team Ladybug (developer of the excellent Touhou Luna Nights) were putting out a new search-action game based on Lodoss War, I finally committed to watching both the OVA and subsequent TV series.

Wonder Labyrinth puts players in control of Deedlit, one of the main characters of the Lodoss War novels and adaptations, and love interest of Parn, the series protagonist. She awakens in a labyrinth with a mild case of amnesia and is quickly confronted by friends and foes who seem both familiar yet off. While I think my familiarity with the source material made the end game twist a bit too obvious, it also gave me a better appreciation for the characters involved and what Deedlit is forced to deal with. It’s still a perfectly comprehensible narrative to the uninitiated, but the more emotional beats risk falling flat without all the backstory to add weight to them.

Like Luna Nights, Wonder Labyrinth is a meld of the shoot-em-up and search-action genres; but while Luna Nights had a direct mechanical reference with its source material, Lodoss War was never a shooter. The solution is a rather smart one, playing on the elemental magic Deedlit and other elves use in Lodoss War by introducing Ikaruga’s attack affinities and hot swapping. Deedlit can bounce between fire and wind magic, allowing her to absorb attacks from whichever element she’s currently set to and build meter on the opposite element as she attacks. Once you’ve built enough meter, swapping back to that element will replenish Deedlit’s health continuously… at least until she takes a hit. This becomes the primarily means of healing throughout the game, adding another layer of complexity beyond playing to the strength and weaknesses of enemies.

Unfortunately, there’s not very many puzzles that make good use of this mechanic, with most problem solving being relegated to gears that the player must strike with an arrow to open up gates or move platforms. As the game progresses, you have to start ricocheting arrows off of metal panels to hit gears, but further complexity amounts to more panels, which really just translates to shooting your arrow around until you get just the right pixel that the puzzle is solved. It’s not great, and I felt more could have been done to tie elemental swapping with progression.

Boss battles are all fantastic. A couple repeat but there’s a thematic reason for this. This is where elemental swapping is at its peak, as you have to very quickly bounce between wind and fire both to survive and deal damage. It can be a bit easy to lose track of which element you are currently swapped to during these more chaotic moments and reflecting this by changing Deedlit’s cape from blue to green doesn’t really help much. Orange or red would be more commonly associated with fire in games, but to signify the fire element in Wonder Labyrinth, Deedlit’s cape turns green, which itself would be more closely tied to wind.

There’s also a boss rush mode that unlocks upon beating the game. Not something I’d ordinarily draw attention to, let alone play, but there is something immensely satisfying about running a clinic on this game’s bosses.

I also want to commend the graphics and soundtrack. This game looks gorgeous. The sprite artists at Ladybug do some really incredible work, animations are very fluid and the environment is rich with detail. It has a very Symphony of the Night vibe to it too, right down to Deedlit’s run animation, which is, frankly, legally actionable. The more gentle orchestral music of Lodoss War that I’m familiar with is tossed forcefully out a window for some Metal Gear Solid 2 tracks. The target practice minigame theme is ridiculously intense for what it is. I love it. Some real Yell Dead Cell shit.

As far as I’m concerned, Team Ladybug can keep putting out these games and I’ll keep eating them up. They look great and they play great. I do think they also share many of the same faults, though. Namely that the unique mechanics that build the foundation of these games never quite feel fully explored or utilized to the best effect they could be, but they're still fun enough that they make these games well worth picking up.

Fantastic but short Metroidvania game. The story is interesting if sparse, but you'll likely understand it more if you have seen the source material. The mechanics, combat, and level design are great with a very well-done element-switching mechanic. The game's pixel art is highly detailed and I enjoyed every moment I played it.

Combat primarily consists of the standard Castlevania style, giving you a small variety of melee weapons to choose from as you collect them over the course of the game. Additionally, you'll have a choice of a bow that feels like an effective secondary weapon choice, not just an effective button to click mindlessly when you can't do anything else, especially when you find better bows.

Not only does it utilize the somewhat familiar system of "change to orange to be immune to orange" but it also adds an additional layer where getting hurt reduces the gauge of the currently-selected element. When your currently-selected element is full you recover HP. This means that you'll spend a lot of time during bosses swapping back and forth between elements to attack with their weakness, defend against their attacks, or play defensively and recover HP.
The wind element also allows limited flight/hovering which can be very effectively utilized when exploring and even while fighting.

My only problem with this game is that it is over before I was done with it, similar to the dev's other great Metroidvania, "Touhou Luna Nights", which is also a must-play in my opinion.

Played on Gamepass (but will probably buy it at some point to play it again)

Eu espero muito que essa onda de jogos metroidvania demore bastante pra acabar, porque jogos como esse são muito gostosinhos! Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth é um jogo no estilo dos antigos Castlevania 2D, fortemente inspirado em Symphony of the Night. Ele conta a história da elfa Deedlit que desperta de um sono e se encontra num mundo que ela ainda não entende muito bem.

O principal destaque, na minha opinião, é a mecânica de alternar entre elementos. Isso praticamente define todo o combate e movimentação do jogo, já que existem inimigos com fraquezas e invulnerabilidades a ataques de determinado elemento, você consegue absorver ataques do elemento que você selecionou, e algumas habilidades só são possíveis de serem realizadas se um elemento X for selecionado. O que ele pega emprestado de SoTN também encaixa perfeitamente aqui, e as boss battles são desafiadoras e interessantes.

O sistema de equipamentos (armas apenas, já que não há armaduras) é bem simples e funcional, o que não é um demérito do jogo. Às vezes, menos é mais! Saber usar e administrar as magias também vai te dar uma vantagem absurda nas batalhas. O que eu não gostei mesmo foram as sessões de plataformas em que o arco era necessário. Pra mim, o modo arqueiro foi totalmente dispensável, e só utilizei quando o jogo me obrigava para conseguir progredir.

Um ótimo jogo, vale muito a pena!

ELF GIRL GAMING
ELF GIRL GAMING
ELF GIRL GAMING
ELF GIRL GAMING
ELF GIRL GAMING
ELF GIRL GAMING
ELF GIRL GAMING
ELF GIRL GAMING
ELF GIRL GAMING
ELF GIRL GAMING

Every time someone asks me what the name of this game is, I feel myself physically age as I say it.

Record of Lodoss War is a franchise that I was surprised to learn actually existed before playing this, turns out it's been around a while. I have absolutely no knowledge or prior experience of this series or the lore, I simply tried it out because a.) it was about to leave game pass, and b.) it was by Team Ladybug, who made Touhou Luna Nights, one of my favourite games of all time. So, with that in mind, I saw this not as an adaptation of the novels, but as a spiritual sequel to Luna Nights.

Unfortunately, this fails to meet the mark set by its predecessor. An emphasis on melee combat makes a change, but sadly there's zero depth to the melee - you just swing your sword (or similar weapon of choice) and do damage. Certain other substitutes such as boomerangs add in a little more to positioning and movement, but it's very standard. Fortunately, there's a great deal of depth in other areas to make up for it, but it never felt as fun as throwing projectiles in Luna Nights.

You do have a bow for ranged attacks, but naturally you have to stand still/move slowly while aiming it. It's mainly used for puzzle solving, but can make surprisingly light work of bosses. There's a great deal of bow types, though you're usually never doing yourself a favour by not using the one with the highest stats. Even the bow that heals you in return for doing less damage isn't really worth it over pure DPS.

The main big combat mechanic is the elemental spirit...switching...thing. You gain the power of two spirits - one is air, giving you a hover ability to manoeuvre around spikes and such, and then there's fire, which...stops you getting hurt by fire. Each of them has some kind of charge system: as you hurt enemies with one spirit, the other charges its level. At Level 2, it does more damage, and at Level 3, that spirit slowly heals you while equipped. That healing makes for a pretty interesting design choice, though one not as effective to me as Luna Nights' healing via grazing attacks. For experienced players, it probably trivialises the game.

The world design, just like Luna Nights, is basic. Very few branching paths, a generally linear progression, and barely hidden secrets. There's merit to exploring, but it always feels like a feature added out of necessity than as a selling point, putting far more emphasis on powering through hordes of enemies towards each boss.

The bosses are once again the highlight, and there's some good stuff in there. Switching spirits to mitigate elemental damage is particularly fun during these, although a few of these patterns are a little bit extreme for protagonist Deedlit's slow walking speed and limited acrobatics. She can do a quick backstep dodge, and jump around, but there's no way to move any faster that I could find. It's not a bad Belmont Strut, but please, Deed, maybe quicken the pace when you're dodging lightning fast attacks from an elven warrior. Or, god forbid, literal lightning attacks. They stun you for a lot of time. Not fun.

Graphics are great, there's some real solid spritework and backgrounds on display, even if the environments are uninspired and samey. There's an extensive amount of fun enemy designs, although they're usually just cannon fodder throughout, especially given that you level up as you go on. The music is pretty alright, but I have to admit that I can't remember a single track, and I literally beat it the same day I'm writing this.

There's a story in there somewhere too, but I'll be honest: this is completely incomprehensible nonsense, and follows the EXACT same structure and setup as Luna Nights, albeit with at least a different message. If you're at all interested in ever reading Lodoss War or watching the anime, I'm told this contains heavy spoilers, so do keep that in mind. Hardcore fans will probably at least enjoy seeing these characters in videogame form for the first time since....huh, there was an MMO in 2016. I was expecting the last one to be that Dreamcast game, but the more you know I guess. Anyways, uh, eat up Lodossheads.

Altogether this is a fine game, but as with Luna Nights, it's neither complicated nor is it long, clocking in at about 6 hours on average. It's very Symphony of the Night-inspired (or so I'm told, I haven't played it yet), so that might be a boon for Castlevania fans, but I would recommend Luna Nights over this anyday.

Team Ladybug has done it once again, and by "it" I mean Symphony of the Night.

Well actually, while Deedlit's sprite and animations are very much influenced by Alucard in SOTN, and the game has a similar weapon system, this game isn't really structured much like that game at all. It's much more in line with previous games from the team like Luna Nights and Synchronicity, in which backtracking is more for finding power-ups and extras, rather than uncovering a new path to take. I don't mind this at all, I love how focused and compact Team Ladybug's games are, Luna Nights is after all my favorite Metroidvania. But after about 4 of these games, I do find this game less exciting than the previous ones.

Once again, it's a Team Ladybug game with a property I'm mostly unfamiliar with, a lot less familiar than I am with either Touhou or SMT. Lodoss War never really interested me as it seems to be a lot of high fantasy-type stuff that's never been my thing, but it does have a 90's OVA done by Madhouse so it's probably pretty tight. Regardless, Team Ladybug has done an incredible job of rendering these characters and the show's iconography in their style, this might be their best-looking project yet. They always go hard on the sprite work in their games, and there were so many moments where I just had to stop to take in the background and animations. The music, while at first, I found to be a little 'typical' of what they've done in the past, ends up capturing the fantasy setting of the world really well, it's more of what this team does best.

This game controls very similarly to Luna Nights in terms of jump and attack feel, but obviously without any of the time stop mechanics or secondary weapons. The two biggest mechanics in this game are the bow, which can be used for attacks but is more often used for puzzle solving, and the two elemental spirits that can be switched out. Each spirit can absorb projectiles of their respective element as well as deal damage of that element to enemies that may be weak to it. The game often has you switching between the two Ikaruga-style, and it's especially important to do so since attacking with one spirit levels up the other, and when a spirit reaches level 3, it can heal you automatically (and rather quickly, I might add). I found this mechanic neat in Synchronicity, but in this game, it felt a little like busy work. It was a lot more interesting to use it as a way to absorb projectiles and avoid damage while traversing a level in Synchronicity, and instead, in this game you just switch to the element the enemy is weak to and continue attacking like normal, there's no real strategy change needed. Also, the automatic healing feels a little too powerful, especially while in the overworld, especially combined with how often you get save points. Luna Nights' graze system was a healing system that demanded a lot more from the player for the same effect, and since reaching level 3 on your spirits is pretty trivial, it was also a lot more satisfying. Bosses are where spirit switching feels most like Ikaruga, and a problem I kept running into was that it was difficult to immediately tell what spirit I was currently using. The game gives some indicators like the spirit being a sprite following you on screen as well as the color of parts of the UI and your outline, but the sprites in this game are so detailed that these indicators can be easily missed, especially in a heated battle with a ton of projectiles on screen. I'd say this lack of clarity was responsible for a decent amount of my deaths in-game.

While the bosses in this game can be fun, they never reach Luna Nights levels of thrilling or demanding. That might have to do with me being more experienced with these games, or there being less to juggle here than in that game. This makes sense, as we've gone from insanely powerful youkai girls equipped with bullet hell attacks to one-on-one fights against either giant dragons or other characters similar in ability to Deedlit, something a little more "grounded". I think some people will enjoy one or the other more. Personally, I can't see any boss fight here sticking with me as much as the one's in Luna Nights.

I mentioned the bow and arrow a while ago now, and while I think the inclusion of arrow puzzle rooms is odd, I do enjoy the mechanics of bouncing arrows off surfaces and rapidly shooting a bunch at distant enemies. Being able to switch between weapons and bows and experiment with them is neat, as they can have huge differences. I do wish being able to hold different weapons on different hands like in SOTN was in this game, but that's only a minor complaint, and it probably would've hurt the whole balance of the game anyway.

The game's story didn't do much for me, someone who has no familiarity with this series, but there is one aspect of it I'm disappointed in. Like Luna Nights, the main character is not actually traversing the world of the series but instead a constructed labyrinth version of it. As I've learned more about this series, I've come to feel like there's so much more potential in a game set in this universe than to just put me in more corridors of mostly indistinct locations. This didn't feel like a huge problem in Luna Nights, and while I haven't nailed why, I think it's a bit of a letdown that essentially the same conceit from that game is being used again. To be fair, the context is different, and I think the payoff for it at the end was cool. Maybe they simply weren't allowed to make the plot of this game matter too much, so I won't be too down on them for it, but hopefully, the next game from them actually has, you know, a setting. The level settings were so strong in Pharaoh Rebirth and Synchronicity, I would love to return to levels like that.

In the end, if you wanted more of what this team does, you won't be disappointed. For me, it doesn't reach the heights of previous games, but that may just be fatigue from this specific formula that they've had for a couple of games now, as well as the introduction of mechanics I never really gelled with. But really, even their weakest effort is something I would recommend to any fan of the genre. Their latest game, Drainus, seems to be a completely different genre, and while I'm not a shmup I'll gladly check it out someday. Oh yeah, and fuck XBOX PC Game Pass for fucking this game up so hard, literally went and just got the game myself on a separate service in order to verify that the app was just running this game at half speed for no reason.

Really enjoyable but sadly cut short, this is basically an indie castlevania clone with its own flourishes so if you like sotn style castlevania games (with multiple weapons and spells and such) you’ll probably love this. Infact, gameplay wise, I may even like it more than sotn and aria of sorrow, which is high praise, because it offers a really interesting and unique elemental spirit system that is fun to use and a bunch of welcome quality of life changes like being able to strike diagonally and upwards. The bow is also a great addition but can be a little awkward to control. There’s a great range of weapons, and though its very linear, the action is constant and rewarding, encouraging aggressive, close quarters fighting instead of hunkering down and fighting from a distance, since you want to keep your elementals’ ‘meters’ up to dish out max damage and gradually restore hp.

This is also a gorgeous looking game with some really wonderful pixel art and animations. There’s weight and intensity behind all attacks and genuine expressiveness in its characters and sentimental moments which is often missing from similarly styled games. Deedlit is a cool character with a fabulous design and the story is quite lean and easy to follow, but still meaningful and drives the game forward nicely.

Despite the lovely animations and effects in isolation though, boss fights can be a bit of a visual mess, with too much busyness to keep track of things, especially when you need to watch your tiny hp, ap and both elemental bars whilst you’re fighting. Its nice having enemy health bars onscreen mind you, and sometimes the cluttered visuals were cool in their own right during particularly frantic encounters, but there’s also times where the very intentional, methodical vania style combat verges on being a bullet hell game and it doesn’t really work too well. This, the length and maybe some grating audio does hold it back a little, but not enough to make this anything but a great metroidvania that is 100% worth checking out.

Here's a mildly amusing anecdote: About two years ago I played Team Ladybug’s previous game, Touhou Luna Nights, and gave it a 4.0 on [Glitchwave]. The thing of it is, I remember nearly nothing about the game. Maybe I’m getting old or maybe there’s too much chloride in the tap water or maybe I’ve played too many metroidvanias over the past few years, but my recollection of this supposedly 4-out-of-5 game was so fuzzy that for a while I was 100% conflating it with Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight in my head. With the help of YouTube I managed to jog my memory, but even after that refresher I struggled to recall exactly why I’d been so enthusiastic about it. (Too bad I wasn’t writing reviews back then!)

Having finished Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth, though, I absolutely understand both why I savored Touhou Luna Nights as well as why it didn’t stick in my memory. Because Team Ladybug have struck once again, delivering a beautiful, perfectly paced Metroidvania – one that manages to hang just a tier below the best in its genre despite a haphazard story and a lack of real standout elements.

There’s a map to fill. Enemies to kill. Experience points to gain. Items to collect. Bosses to conquer. Team Ladybug have borrowed many elements from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, fusing them together with detailed animations, lovely parallax-scrolling effects, and silky smooth combat – which isn’t to say that it’s a mere clone. One notable difference lays in the level design. The layout of the labyrinth, though not particularly inspired, always kept pushing me moving forward. Yet on the other hand, when I wanted to return to a previous area for a second look, a fast-travel point was never far away. Team Ladybug have even made key improvements to the UI since their previous game, adding features like a minimap in the corner of the screen.

I wonder if the game’s greatest sin is that it doesn’t provide enough friction for the player. Rushing around the map and bumping into new bosses every 20 to 30 minutes keeps the game feeling fresh, but it also makes every new encounter less memorable than the last. The game has a few impressive setpieces, like a pair of battles with dragons, but both of these appear in the first half of the game. The tension level flattens out early, when ideally it should build and build and build instead.

There is at least one innovative feature here, however, that as far as I know hasn’t been used in a Metroidvania before. That feature is elemental switching. The game’s namesake and protagonist, Deedlit, can switch between Fire and Wind at will. Certain obstacles can only be overcome by switching between the two, and many enemies are more vulnerable to one element than the other.

Complicating matters further is that both elements have power levels. When an element is charged up to level three, it confers attack bonuses and also allows you to slowly regain health while you have it equipped – a trick that comes in handy during boss fights. How do you charge up to level three, you ask? You do it by attacking with the other element, so attacking with Wind charges Fire and vice versa. In practice, this means you’ll find yourself frequently bouncing between the two, trying to keep both topped up in order to maximize your damage output and health regeneration. Personally, I found this system extremely engaging, and by the end of the game my finger was constantly clicking the right bumper, ever seeking a little boost.

Will this game stick more firmly in my memory than Team Ladybug’s previous offering? Only time will tell, though I certainly hope it will. It honestly has even made me interested in checking out the manga that it’s based on. High fantasy, Japan-style? Sign me up.

Since Touhou Luna Nights was such a pleasant surprise, I figured Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth would be too. I recently watched the Record of Lodoss War anime from 1990 and quite enjoyed it for its beautiful animation and cozy fantasy storytelling that went on to influence loads of other Japanese works, so I was ready to roll with whatever Team Ladybug was offering. Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth is the exact opposite experience of its source material - instead of being an impressive trendsetter, it follows in the footsteps of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night so precisely that it ends up feeling too derivative and lacking in ambition for its own good. It's a good game, but there's really nothing exceptional about it, and that's a shame considering how inspired and inventive Touhou Luna Nights was.

Using a similar premise to Luna Nights, Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth follows the story of Deedlit, everybody's favorite elven spellcaster, as she finds herself trapped inside a mysterious labyrinth. The game doesn't specifically call it a wonder labyrinth, but I certainly won't stop you from calling it that! Deedlit comes across her deceased lover Parn (this game takes place years after where the anime ends and high elves outlive humans) who is suddenly alive but unresponsive to her presence, which naturally has her questioning her current location and state of mind. Chasing down Parn and figuring out what's going on is her main goal, but along the way, she'll meet up with friends and foes from her past adventures.

While this game does absolutely nothing to bring people up to speed if they're unfamiliar with the source material, having that knowledge doesn't feel particularly valuable either. Most instances of dialogue in this game consist of Deedlit encountering characters who posit increasingly abstract and philosophical positions on life, death, regret, ambition, and other vague themes meant to make Deedlit doubt herself and her place in the world. That sounds compelling in theory, especially since Deedlit is likely the best choice to do a deeper character study on out of the anime's cast, but the writing just fails to make it interesting at all. Because of how often the game likes to repeat its core themes, every character eschews their personality from the anime in exchange for for being identical mouthpieces. There's no banter, no wit, no charm, and no surprises, just people going on and on about things that sometimes don't even feel coherent. The one exception to this is Woodchuck, who isn't involved in the story but gets his own gambling game in which he'll call you out and ban you temporarily if you try to reload when you lose! Knowing that the game takes place in an alternate realm where nobody is technically real gives something of an excuse for this, but it also makes the stakes feel low and it's hard to care even when villains who didn't survive the events of the anime get another chance to make an impression. Touhou Luna Nights didn't have particularly impressive dialogue by any means, but it had at least a bit of personality to it, something that I can't say the same about here, aside from Woodchuck, anyway.

Stop me if this sounds familiar: in this game, you'll be following a map as you explore areas, kill enemies, and find new weapons and abilities that help you traverse areas that you couldn't access previously. There are thankfully some wrinkles in the formula that we'll get to, but most of the game is extremely familiar if you've played Castlevania or any Metroidvania from the past decade. Not inherently a bad thing, but to belabor the point yet again, nothing here surprises or impresses. Weapons are mostly linear upgrades and generally handle the same (the greatswords being the only real exception with their overhead slash attack that's taken straight out of Castlevania: Aria/Dawn of Sorrow) and traversal upgrades consist of the usual double and super jumps. I understand a lot of people love this genre and the cozy familiarity that comes with it, but I've hit a point where I've played enough of them and it feels so oversaturated that I really need something compelling to hook me beyond good "game feel" or pretty graphics. Deedlit does have a couple of unusual ideas to help it stand out, but I wasn't a fan of either of them, generally finding that they detracted from the gameplay more than they added to it.

Alongside your melee weapons and special magic attacks that you can acquire by exploring (these work identically to the ones in Luna Nights, only not nearly as powerful), you also get a bow that obviously serves as an effective projectile attack. Different bows have different elements or projectiles spreads which is cool, but you'll typically use the strongest one regardless. Your Bow is also used to solve a variety of puzzles, which typically consist of reflecting arrows off of walls or shooting a gear enough times for it to turn and activate a contraption. It's a nice gesture to have something to do beyond fighting and platforming, but I found these sequences to be absolutely miserable roadblocks whenever they appeared. The problem is that the act of using your bow is made convoluted to a ridiculous degree. You can shoot straight, angle shots, stay fixed in place to aim more carefully, move while aiming, aim while floating, change directions while aiming, and you can even jump while aiming. Each action requires a different button or multiple buttons held down simultaneously while moving and doing other things, so to aim effectively at all, you need to fumble around the controller like you're playing a game of Twister with your fingers; it's wild how unintuitive it feels! Combine that with strange physics that make judging reflections difficult and make it so you can undo progress by shooting a gear in the ever so slightly wrong place and you have yourself a total nightmare. Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth is mostly a cakewalk, but any section where I had to use the bow really tested my patience in a way that nothing else in the game (or Luna Nights) could compare to.

The other big mechanic of the game lies with the wind (Sylph) and fire (Salamander) familiars that Deedlit acquires early on. These familiars allow Deedlit to swap between these elements at will, granting her immunity to the selected element as well as some minor perks like being able to float. It's very much in the vein of something like Ikaruga, though nowhere near as intense. You're expected to make use of this mechanic constantly; getting kills and collecting cubes levels up each element, making them stronger and also allowing for constant health regeneration, but getting hit levels them down. It's an interesting idea that encourages proper defense like grazing in Luna Nights did and when you're on the ball, there is a thrill to deftly swapping elements to nullify even the scariest of projectiles. But that's really all there is to it for the entire game - damage negation and the occasional boost to your damage if you're hitting a weakness, and neither makes enough of a difference to demand mastery of the mechanics. Having more elements to play with that had more specific or interesting uses, say for better designed puzzles or other forms of exploration, would have done a lot to make the game more engaging. Beyond Oasis, for example, is a game that does a wonderful job of making its elemental summoning mechanic remain interesting throughout by challenging you in all sorts of ways beyond just combat, so the idea is clearly sound. The game has a whole system for exploiting elemental weaknesses too that's almost impossible to use - how am I supposed to exploit a dark weakness if I don't have a dark familiar? The answer Team Ladybug came to was "using one of like three weapons in the game or a sole magic spell", making the system feel like an incredibly obvious missed opportunity.

After loving Touhou Luna Nights, it's a bummer to be so down on this game by comparison, but I can't help but feel that Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth is a regression in nearly every way. If you put them side by side and asked me to tell you which one came first, I would have picked this game because it really feels like a first draft! It looks great and animates beautifully, the action feels competent enough, and some quality of life ideas like better warp and save point placement were implemented, but it otherwise does very little to try and raise the bar of the genre. Luna Nights combined the metroidvania essentials with a lot of innovative and fun ideas that encouraged player expression and overcoming intense foes, whereas Wonder labyrinth feels liked going through the motions as if you rented Castlevania Symphony of the Night for the 20th time. It's easy and short enough too that it feels like it's all too eager to be out of sight and out of mind, which lacks confidence in a surprising way. If metroidvanias are your comfort food, this will absolutely serve that purpose, but if you're looking for something that'll make a lasting impression, this ain't it - much like the labyrinth it takes place in, this game is ultimately one that faded from my memory as quickly as it came into my life.

Excellent short and sweet Castlevania type game. I played this through Gamepass and just for that alone I will say this is a MUST play. BEWARE that I have heard that sadly the PC gamepass version of this title is very unplayable so if you try to play this through gamepass PC you won't probably have a good time. If you own a xbox one and have Gamepass then that is the preferred way to play this title or the steam version.


Everything just felt right about this title from the Map itself to the difficulty and combat. The story itself is very interesting and it was a shock to find out that this was based of an Anime series of the same name which I had no idea but I still understood the game's story so I don't assume you need any Anime knowledge to play this one unless you want to know more about the characters from the game. I didn't really have many issues with the game as my playthrough was very fun and never was there a moment where I disliked this short journey. If you like castlevania games this is easily a must play!

If you like metroidvanias, do play this game. It's quite short (5-ish hours I believe), and the best way I can describe it is "Symphony of the Night Lite, with a pinch of Ikaruga (seriously)"

As a certified metroidvania junkie, I couldn't put it down.

But it has a Street Fighter-like stun mechanic, and I have no idea why they thought it was a good idea. It's terrible.

I annoyingly finished with 97% of the map complete

Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth is an amazingly simple game. For a Metroidvania it doesn’t go too heavy on exploration, and focuses more on the action/combat, which is mechanically solid and never gets all that difficult. The combat in question revolves around a cool elemental switching system, with some lite rpg components sprinkled on top which combines to make a fun, engaging, and sometimes hectic experience. And another thing to note, I really liked the main theme of the narrative, at least what I interpreted of it. Naturally, since it’s a metroidvania said narrative isn’t really too prevalent, and you only get small bits of dialogue here and there, mainly after boss fights and such, but for what’s there, it’s nice. Also the game has beautiful pixel art, and the animations of the enemies/bosses as well as deedlit are fantastic as well. Looking at a couple of Deedlit’s animations, I can draw comparisons between them and Alucard’s animations in symphony of the night which is really cool at least I think. The only critiques that I have for the game are that I feel it could be harder, or at least a hard difficulty unlock would be appreciated, the way the game is structured makes it feel a bit too linear, and on-top of that I wish they went deeper into the exploration (as-in adding more hidden rooms, and other secrets to find).

Decent Metroidvania, It can be described as "Symphony of Night in bite size". Good for someone who has itch of Metroidvania but doesn't want to invest so much time.
FYI: If you are using high refresh rate monitor, decrease refresh rate to 60Hz. Game becomes sluggish on high refresh rate for some reason.

無難なメトロイドヴァニアです。一口サイズの月下の夜想曲という感じでお手軽でした。さくっとメトロイドヴァニアしたい人にはお勧めかと。
余談になりますが、高リフレッシュレートのモニタをお使いの場合は60Hzに下げてください。高レートのままだとゲームがカクカクします。