Really great action-exploration game, brings up some stuff from the setting outside of the OVA adaptation towards the end that could definitely be considered spoilers if you haven't read the novels and are planning on doing so, but overall the story mostly takes the back seat and the game is incredibly well-made; the combat almost feels like SOTN+ as the base, with Deed handling very similarly to Alucard with some great ideas for quality of life features like being able to aim your weapon straight up, down, and diagonally which isn't very typical for the later 2D castlevanias but welcome nonetheless as the game is very much designed for it.
There's also the mechanic of there being two elements that you can swap between that imbue your attacks with it's properties while also allowing you to absorb enemy attacks or environmental hazards of that element to regenerate MP. Attacking with one element will increase the level of the other, up to 3. Somewhat similar to how weapons in Cave Story work, if you take damage then the level of your currently set element will go down; with each level gained you deal increased damage and at level 3 will also slowly regenerate your HP. Enemies can also be strong, weak, or even immune to one element which does a good job of tying the tabletop RPG elements of the source material into gameplay; there are even elements outside of the main two, however they're mainly used as quick gimmicks for some extra spice rather than core mechanics like wind and fire are. This extra dimension to the gameplay elevates the combat to the point that I think it really is going for metroidvania (as in, the exploration-focused castlevania games) but better, and I think it really excels there.
Unfortunately as is the case with many indie action-exploration games it doesn't quite deliver on the scale or nonlinearity that one might expect from a more ambitious game aiming for a Metroid or a Castlevania, but what is there for the world map is built quite well, even if it may be lacking in significant backtracking, Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth more than makes up for it's shortness with the character of it's 2D pixel art and animation and the fantastic soundtrack, with some of the most well thought-out combat design in any of the similar games within the "metroidvania" genre I have played.

Like the team's previous effort (Touhou Luna Nights), this is ostensibly a Metroidvania but the exploration is neither particularly satisfying nor the main draw. Instead, these titles justify themselves by giving the player character a slightly awkward, slightly brain-bendy moveset and tasking them with fluently applying it to some pretty good boss fights. I don't really mean "awkward" as an insult. Honestly, at this point in my life, control schemes or character powers that don't conform to what my brain or hands already expect are a plus. Deedlit's ability to shift between fire and wind aspects, and the asymmetry of those aspects, and the frequency of these aspect shifts, give boss fights a frantic feel that I was completely on board for.

The boss fights were the big hook for me, but I also want to specifically compliment the SOTN-inspired sprites.

I doubt I'll replay, but just as Touhou was good enough that I gave Deedlit a chance, Deedlit was good enough that I'll probably try Drainus too.

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!

Ikaruga is simply forever.

In steam ladybug's second foray into Metroidvanias, following Touhou Luna Night, commits way harder into SOTN and the surprising influence in Ikaruga. The core gameplay mechanic of this game is swapping between Wind and Fire elements; when you're in a wind your completely negate the wind/blue damage and when you're in fire you absorb fire/red damage, and enemies can take extra/less/completely negate damage if you're in wind or fire. You can swap instantly between the two, even when getting it, and in both bosses and traversing the map will require you to swap constantly between the two stances. It's a cool system, but I overall dont like it as much as I like the time mechanics used in Luna Nights. I found myself often losing track of whatever stance I was currently in, and in the more fast paced bosses it became really hard to micromanage my stances while also trying to dodge the boss hits and also trying to keep doing damage. On the other hand, on the fights I got good at you could get really fast boss kills so that was fun.

The overall level and boss design is just Pretty good. There's nothing particularly outstanding with a few things that were more annoying than enjoyable (s/o to the spinning sword wheels. fuckem.) Even getting movement skills like floating nearly right off the bat doesn't lead to a lot of super interesting moments of platforming and the such.

On the plus side, team ladybug continues to knock it out of the park in presentation. Team ladybug has to have the best sprite artists in the industry right now, especially for what I believe is a small indie team. All of the sprite work and designs are just fantastic, deedlit even literally does the SOTN swag walk. I think Luna Night has better overall tracks but I'm bias and care about touhou more than I care about RoLW, and this game still has some good ass tracks too.

A pretty good overall metroidvania with a cool gimmick and some top notch presentation. If you put a gun to my head and told me to choose i'd pick touhou luna nights but who am I to make two bad bitches fight each other? I'll continue to keep looking forward to Team Ladybug's games

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.

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)

Então... como falar desse jogo..?

Eu gostaria de comparar ele como um misto, um lanchinho basico e gostoso que vai te encher. O pão estava no ponto, o queijo estava perfeito, e o presunto no lugar dele, mas... é so isso eu acho.

Os sprites são belissimos, as animações são de cair o cu da bunda, e a historia existe (padrão de metroidvania), mas cara, é so isso, ele não tem muita coisa que destaca ele ou faz dele um jogo super memorável, e algumas outras adições dele sempre vem com um debuff, por exemplo o numero exageradamente grande de tipos de armas, que no final so são 2 tipos: Bater em linha reta, e bater em parabola. "Ah mas tem lança, tem espada, tem chakran" Cara do que adianta ter essa variedade visual se no final é tudo a mesma coisa quando tu bate? Ta a lança tem mais alcance, mas se não fosse por isso ela so seria uma espada normal, assim como o chakram que so bate uma vez em linha reta e é isso.

Enfim, um bom jogo, as lutas de bosses são épicas e super fodas e o level design é bom, recomendo

This game was pretty damn fun, finished at lvl 49, never needed to grind nor did I. I really like the Spirit System, it made for some chaotic plays during boss battles but it helped make them memorable. I will say some bow and arrow puzzles were a bit of a pain sometimes but nothing absolutely awful or anything. The music is amazing, they did a great job, I didn't find a single track that I disliked. The areas being separated by stages were cool, especially since you could backtrack and explore other paths. I liked the story of Deedlit even if I was lost on some detail since I didn't watch the anime before playing. I'm interested in watching it though so maybe at some point. I recommend this regardless, a beautiful game with a relatable story.

A problem I had with the game was that it's a bit glitchy sometimes. Like if the enemy wasn't more than 85% on screen my arrow would go right through them and they wouldn't take any damage. In one of the boss fights, when the boss was attacking with a blue attack and I switch to the blue spirit but still took some damage for some reason. It never happened again but that was weird.

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.

A short and sweet adventure. Not among the best Metroidvanias ever but I enjoyed my time with it. It's not even really a metroidvania as I NEVER backtracked to a previous level, and only needed an upgrade a few times to move forward, and only then it was a traversal upgrade. It's more of an adventure game that seeks to mimic the spirit of SotN and I think it succeeds in that regard. If you have never seen the anime (which I have not), the story is nearly incomprehensible. Environments can get very repetitive and the lack of landmarks is disorienting (great map system though). I like the twin spirits system but it is either too easy or too hard to maintain level 3 bar and the system feels underused, it is ONLY used for combat and even then the elemental weakness system was not apparent until I read about it after I beat the game. At a certain point you become powerful enough and solve the game. There is no point in the shop, you get weapons steadily that are better than anything you find in it. Despite all my gripes and imperfections in design I walk away with positive feelings and being very charmed, not to mention the game is so pleasing to look at and live in. The game really is more than the sum of its parts! I do recommend it for anyone looking to scratch an itch, and most important to remember is this is an indie game made by a small group of talented people (and a Japanese indie game at that, so rare) so their achievement is large and commendable~!

Metroidvania tremendamente ágil y directo. Puro gozo.

Pros:
- Todo un gusto moverse por sus escenario. Todo ocurre con una fluidez maravillosa.
- La alternancia entre los poderes de viento y fuego le dan una frescura enorme al gameplay y están muy bien aprovechados.
- A diferencia de la saga Castlevania, aquí los muros secretos son identificables.

Contras:
- En el tramo final abusa demasiado de meterte en pasillos estrechos con enemigos enormes.
- Un puntito más de dificultad no le habría venido mal. Es demasiado fácil abusar de las magias y las pociones.
- Falla estrepitosamente al intentar dotar de narrativa al título.

I think it's okay, the gimmick of switching elements is interesting and makes for some cool boss battles which is probably the best part of the game. I hated the bow "puzzles", even though it gave the levels some variety I guess.

Other than that it feels somewhat superficial, 90% of the enemies feel the same as you will most likely just kill then before they can even attack you, weapons don't feel very different due to how fast everything is anyway and the game seems to run out of ideas by the end of stage 4. Exploration is also kinda lame as the game is mostly linear, you backtrack a few times to get weapons or upgrades and there is the usual pretty obvious breakable wall and that is.