Hoş görselliğe ve değişik Souls mantığındaki mekaniklere sahip olmasına karşın, maalesef oldukça ham ve kısa bir oyun. Souls mantığını sadece konsept olarak alıp, shooter mantığı ve bazı tehlikeli düşmanları bir araya tutarak zorluğu sağlamaya çalışmış ama bunun pek de başarılı olduğunu söyleyemem.

Boss savaşları da keza çok akılda kalıcı sayılmaz ama oynanışa bir kere alışabildiniz mi, son boss'ların bazıları bu oynanışa göre güzel dizayn edildiğinden eğlenceli olabiliyor. Aynı şey, platforming kısımları için de geçerli. En azından bu şekilde bir fark yaratabilmesi hoşuma gitti.

Devam oyunu ile toparlanıp gelişmeye oldukça müsait duran bir ilk oyun diyebilirim, şimdilik.

A solid metroidvania type game with wonderful pixel art and aesthics that does not revolutionize the genre but provides an enjoyable experience.

Pros
+ Wonderful pixel graphics/art design
+ Solid Gameplay
+ Regularly goes on sale (at least for switch)

Cons
- Navigation ad controls takes awhile to get used to
- A lot of game aspects are by the numbers for the genre

Overall: Fans of Metroidvania's and platforming fans looking for extra puzzles in this game would get some enjoyment from this game. It's unique navigation system may be a turn off for some. Worth a play for those who are a fan of the genre, especially if found on sale (I've seen the game go on sale for under 5 dollars on the US Switch store about 2-3 times within a year)

before i start this review i only played about 4 hours of this game

i personally think this is a good game that i really want to love but i just cant work my head around the controls. nearly every single time i died i felt like it wasn't my fault. i love a lot of what this game does. the pixel art looks great the areas are well designed and the atmosphere and music are pretty top notch. i just couldn't really get into the games main gimmick being that you jump from wall to wall. if you are interested in this game i implore you to try it as im sure im one of the outliers here

My first impression of this game and the thing that really stuck with me after I played it was the sound design and music. Everything is so CRISP. It was ear candy during the whole playthrough.

The world is super diverse and interesting. It can be confusing at first but I found a lot of the concepts to be really cool. The backtracking was sometimes annoying if I missed something or misread the map, though.

The combat and movement are pretty fun but tricky to master. It took me a while to feel like I had gotten a good hang of it.

Holy shit though this game gets so hard during certain sections. Some of the memories that have stuck with me the most are of me dying repeatedly at a difficult boss section. Especially the final final battle. This game can be extremely frustrating.

I don't even remember how many attempts it took me to beat the final battle but I know it took several play sessions over three days to eventually defeat it. This may be the hardest part of any video game I have ever played ever. I had filled a whole notebook page with notes for strategy and recognizing why I died so much.

But the feeling of reward once you finally get past the tough sections is so nice. I could always see myself improving in at least one aspect by the time I made it through. Bomb ass game if you're up for the challenge.

This game has a very unique style of movement and, on top of that, is a Metroidvania! All set up to be something I adored, and yet something was... wrong.

It's all so well put together, great looking pixel art and an ASTONISHING soundtrack. The movement is incredibly fluid and never got in the way of things I wanted to do. Still, there was a nagging feeling that something just wasn't clicking. I was never hooked, even if I was having fun throughout. It's hard to point out too many concrete issues with it, though there is one thing that bothered me immensely; the map is pretty terrible.

After playing Teslagrad 2, I feel as if a lot of Metroidvanias are going to struggle to match its brilliant map design, but I'd argue Dandara's was outright bad at times. I was getting lost frequently, following paths for ages that eventually reached dead ends that I lacked the abilities to clear, meaning there was tons of backtracking. This is usually alleviated in other games by good shortcuts or providing SOME sort of reward for going out of your way early, but oftentimes I was lead along for far too long just to feel like an idiot when I was stopped abruptly. It was so frustrating and not an issue I generally have within the genre.

Ability-wise, I didn't think anything was all too interesting. The game's general "feel" as well as the occasional fantastic area and boss were able to bring up my opinion on this greatly, it's just a shame then that it could have been outstanding.

Metroidvanias are not my forte and I didn't play this enough to merit a score.

It's pretty and the mechanics are unique, however it's too punishing for me - you have like three hp and enemies appear and attack you in a way that don't mesh well with the game's traversal system.

I have a hunch it'll play better with a controller

The game started very well, I liked the first parts but as some mechanics were presented to me in frustrating ways and in my point of view the level design that started well was horrible, having to go through parts that in my view I shouldn't have at the time to continuing with the story clearly messed up my gameplay and deviated from what I expected from a good metroidvania.
Apart from that the fighting mechanics are either simple and a little cool or very frustrating, not having a map that shows the chests already seen is also something I didn't like.
I finished the game without having fully explored the map, which makes me wonder if exploring like I did was really necessary. And it seems to me I also ended up finishing the game without getting all the items and powers.
The story can captivate some people, the references are also nice, the rest is a very simple game, with systems that could be introduced in a more didactic and legal way.
I expected to have more fun since the jumping mechanic is such a creative thing.

02/09/2024 update:
After a while, I sat down to play this game again. Did my opinion change from last time? A little. Most of my criticisms remain the same, with a few more nitpicks, although now I find myself liking Dandara a bit more.

The music, the art, they elevate the game despite its glaring flaws, and I cannot say I hated the game as a whole, but I was frustrated by the lack of direction. Other Metroidvanias are more intuitive, with a general idea with where you should go, but here, the direction starts lacking once you reach the Hidden Kingdoms, and the lack of savepoints in that area still frustrates me.

However, after I better learned the jumping and movement, I could finally play this game better, and what I got at the end, despite all the frustrations, was truthfully worth it. I really like this game's setting and story, through and through, and that was the thing that got me to keep going to the end.

Would I still recommend it? Yeah, I would. It's certainly an unique experience, and I'm glad I played it.

(For extra context: I'm Brazilian, and this game was made in my native language and contains several references to Brazilian culture, History and folklore, which I understood.)

I have played this game for 15.5 hours.

First thing's first, there are many things I like in this game.

The music: It's fantastic, whether it's the ethereal ambience or the dramatic score for fights, it's a great feature the game has.

The graphics: I'm a lover of pixel art, and this game looks gorgeous. The backgrounds and the environment look sublime. The characters' designs look great, and they're pretty creative.

The story: It's compelling, and I like that you can piece it together through character dialogue and clues spread all around. It's a staple of Metroidvanias that I will like no matter the game.

Now, at first, on the first few hours, I really like the game, and I would have given it a higher grade if it weren't for a series of factors that piled on as the game progressed.

The gameplay. It's not bad in of itself, but then things get unbearably harsh once the enemies start popping around the clock.

You CANNOT attack while jumping. You have to stand still and then shoot, making you an easy target for enemies if you don't watch yourself. On top of this, you have to charge your attack in one second. Now this, IN OF ITSELF, isn't bad. It encourages you to think and plan your trajectory as you dodge the enemies and environmental hazards at your leisure. But then the game starts throwing fast enemies at you, and they come by the numbers. You don't have time to stop and think; you HAVE to move faster than you can think, and to the combat's detriment: You CAN'T shoot while jumping, AND you're forced to sit still for at least one second to be able to attack at all.

You can use other alternative, faster attacks, but they will drain your MP, and while you're able to replenish it, there's only an amount of times you can do so before needing to go to a save point. And the game, later on, has many difficult gauntlets and enemy-infested areas that punish you if you stop to think for one moment. You are forced to pre-plan every move you make and you still have to improvise midway through, because of several hazards and enemies the game throws at you.

The aiming system is weird. I'm not sure if it's just me, but when I'm aiming, the jumping trajectory line (highlighted in a green color) sometimes will stop if you're trying to move it from several smaller platforms, and many times I had to move my mouse back and forth to get it to move, and many times I got hurt or died because of this.

And, while the game overall has fairly even distributed save points, this one area, the Hidden Kingdoms, is way, WAY too big compared to the other areas, and it gets really tedious to navigate through it because there are very few save points. In this one massive area, on the lower part of the Hidden Kingdoms' map, there are but two solitary save points, and getting to them takes way too long. If you die in this area, you have to traverse a really far distance to reach the place you last died, making a tedious experience frustrating, especially in the Trials' area, where you have to walk a long distance to get to any of said Trials.

I found out later that you can enable "respawn at the door", which makes things much more convenient, but it's a cheat. Why is it a cheat? This wouldn't be much of a problem if this IMMENSE area had more save points. Even harder games like Hollow Knight, Blasphemous, and the Souls games have evenly distributed save points where you can rest and respawn without having to backtrack too much.

This huge difficulty spike is at best unwarranted, and comes across as an artificial way to increase difficulty, and it's the biggest detractor of this game. It doesn't feel challenging: It feels unfair, and unearned, and also frustrates me.

I have to say, however: I haven't finished this game. These are my thoughts after playing well over 15 hours, and most of these hours were dotted with frustration and lots of backtracking.

I may change my thoughts and thus my score later, but so far, this is my experience with the game. If you still want to play it, go ahead, I could maybe even recommend it, but be wary of these flaws; it might be more frustrating to you than it was for me.

Dandara: Trials of Fear é um metroidvania desenvolvido por um estúdio brasileiro, algo que ao ressaltar deve fazer muitas pessoas se questionarem da qualidade dele, isso porque nesses últimos anos tivemos muitas decepções vinda do mercado de jogos brasileiros, como 171, o jogo que se vende como um "GTA no Brasil" e Rio: Rised in Oblivion, um jogo que quando foi anunciado e repercutiu bastante, sendo conhecido como "O jogo de sobrevivência no Brasil". Existe uma grande culpa das desenvolvedoras por prometerem um jogo muito ambicioso ambientado nas terras tupiniquins, mas que quando foram lançados, tiveram um resultado muito abaixo do esperado.

Mas isso também acontece com Dandara?
Respondendo essa pergunta, fico muito feliz de dizer que não. Dandara pega o ponto certo de inspiração, não focado no cenário brasileiro, mas sim na Arte e na Cultura.
Não entendeu direito? Eu posso explicar melhor.

Cada país se expressa na arte da sua própria forma e o Brasil não seria diferente. A literatura, as Pinturas, o Cinema e a Música tem sua própria peculiaridade no Brasil, e Dandara se inspira no que temos de melhor. O mundo apresentado logo na introdução do jogo já apresenta muito do que ele quer falar.

O jogo abre com umas artes em pixel e um texto falando de um mundo chamado de Sal. É um mundo onde as pessoas se expressam através dos diferentes tipos de arte, seja a música ou a pintura. Esse mundo é governado por um ser chamado de "O Escritor", a vida das pessoas ali parece bem feliz, até que esse mundo é atacado por um ditador que coloca as pessoas sob opressão.
Logo quando todos perdem a esperança de serem salvos, surge uma guerreira chamada de Dandara, alguém que trará liberdade para todos daquele mundo.

Após essa descrição, notamos algumas inspirações, como a própria protagonista, Dandara é inspirada na personagem histórica Dandara dos Palmares, a esposa de Zumbi dos Palmares, essa inspiração é muito importante para o que o jogo quer nos dizer. O jogo discute muito a questão de liberdade, usando de diversas referências da época colonialista, uma luta da liberdade e da igualdade, assim como Dandara e seu marido foram responsáveis por parte da abolição da escravatura no Brasil colonial.

E voltando a falar do jogo, como eu já mencionei, ele é um Metroidvania, ou seja, seu objetivo aqui vai ser explorar cenários 2D e buscar habilidades para poder desbloquear áreas novas. Suas habilidades, normalmente, são adquiridas conversando com alguns dos personagens que estão sob a pressão da ditadura e elas são focadas em você mover coisas. A primeira habilidade que você consegue é conversando com a Tarsila — personagem inspirada na artista Tarsila do Amaral e seu visual é baseado no Abaporu —, que é uma pintora e te dá a habilidade de se mover através das plataformas verdes. Outra habilidade que você consegue logo em seguida é a do Músico, que te permite se mover pelas plataformas roxas, o visual do músico parece bastante inspirado em artístas de MPB, como Tom Jobim ou Chico Buarque.

Pode parecer meio sem criatividade as habilidades que vocês consegue, mas todas essas plataformas se movem de um jeito específico, como a habilidade que move rochas, ela costuma girar, abrir e fechar certos locais. Esse level design do jogo é construído desse jeito justamente pela maneira que você se move pelo mapa. Como deve notar, você não anda de maneira convencional, aquele mundo sequer parece ter uma física, qualquer local pode ser um chão, mas ao menos tempo nem tudo é, você se move se transportando para qualquer um desses locais que o jogo te permitir, mas claro, há um range para se mover. E assim entramos no novo tópico que é o level design, que embora a maneira que você se mova pareça ser limitada, é bastante criativa e nada repetitiva. As áreas são construídas através de objetivos, quando você chega em uma área nova, no começo dela tem um acampamento, que é o local de checkpoint e você usa para fazer melhorias em si mesma, detalhe que essas melhorias são feitas com o dinheiro que os inimigos dropam, é possível montar algumas pseudo-builds que podem te ajudar no jogo, recomendo que pense bastante quando for upar. A partir do momento que você começa a adentrar na área, seu objetivo vai ser atravessar por ela com os recursos que você tem e no final você vai ganhar uma nova magia ou uma nova habilidade que vai ter permitir passar para uma nova área. Cada área é baseada em um uma habilidade ou em um conceito, e as vezes, o conceito pode até ser chamado de puzzle, como por exemplo o que eu gosto de chamar de Torre do Tempo, que é uma torre onde cada sala tem um relógio e quando você liga ele, você tem que atravessar a sala o mais rápido possível antes que o tempo acabe, se não a porta que é mantida aberta enquanto o relógio está ativo se fecha.

Esse é um level design simples que vai ficando cada vez mais criativo conforme você vai progredindo, mas devo dizer, que level design ordinário, hein! Alguns desafios vão te fazer quebrar muito a cabeça para solucionar eles, todos de diferentes formas.

Algo sobre o level design que gostaria de falar é que enquanto você explora, é possível encontrar almas de guerreiros que já passaram por esse mundo, mostrando como não é a primeira vez que aparecem salvadores, dando mais motivo para a perda da esperança desse mundo, há cartas, estátuas e mais um monte de coisas com descrições também apresentando um cenário deprimente e que já está em queda à tempos.

Falei tanto e esqueci de falar dos gráficos, que aqui são bem bonitos. Seu traço lembra de alguns movimentos artístico que permearam pelo Brasil, como o modernismo brasileiro, outra coisa que se encaixa muito com o tema do jogo, já que ele discute sobre a liberdade dentro de uma visão artística.

E tem as músicas, que embora não sejam ruins, não vejo elas como memoráveis. A trilha segue um estilo mais ambiental, são simples, mas parece o ponto mais desconexo dentro do jogo, gostaria muito se as notas fossem inspiradas no MPB dos anos 60, isso se encaixaria tão bem.

No fim é isso, essa é uma breve análise de um jogo indie brasileiro que se inspira muito na própria cultura para se expressar, seu tema sobre liberdade e expressão é algo bastante atual e mesmo na sua simplicidade, o jogo é bastante poético.

"Even if the story presented is a bit vague, Dandara does a great job at setting up the atmosphere of its world, with the help of a beautiful 2D pixel art style and a pleasant soundtrack, you find yourself wanting to explore more of this world. And, unfortunately, that's where its main problem lies - the map. Genuinely one of the most difficult maps to traverse in recent memory and with the occasional more difficult sections of the game (and lack of save points), it means you have to repeat entire areas pretty often. Thankfully, the gameplay is pretty solid, giving you unique ways to deal with enemies and traps with the core mechanics evolving throughout the game. Overall, a recommendation for fans of 2D platformers and metroidvanias or if it's in any of your game subscription (sadly, it's no longer in the PS Plus catalogue)."

I enjoyed this game when I first played it, but had to stop in the middle as I got busy with life. It has been a long time since I last played, probably almost a year, and I had just gotten back to playing this as I write this review. I basically forgot everything and find the game unplayable as I can't just simply get back into it. I was able to complete the 3 trials as that was where I left off, but after that I don't know where I need to go next... also because I have not played so long and the game play is so unique (especially the movement mechanic), my instincts keep back-firing on me which further adds to the unplayable experience. It saddens me as I really like the art and the game looks so interesting and is unique, which is one reason why I got it in the first place but... as a casual player with a very busy life, I cannot get into this game as it isn't enjoyable, so I have to abandon it...