Huh. I had been hearing about this one for years, but put it off as I've with so many games lately, and was enjoying it all the way up until I ended up beating it in 75 minutes and on my first attempt, which just the death knell for any roguelite for me. I need that carrot to chase, that feeling of just one more go and I'll beat it next time, and I'm obviously not getting that here since I ended up hopefully getting very lucky with what I found on my first run. I say hopefully because I hope the game isn't this ridiculously easy for everyone on their first go. I mean, I no-hitted the final boss without even trying and that shouldn't happen in a roguelite.
The game itself is pretty much just Metroid: The Roguelite. Plays and flows more or less exactly as the oldschool 2D Metroids do, perhaps specifically Super Metroid. Same movement pattern with the floaty, spinny jump and same pretty weak (at first) pew-pew pea-shooter, and level design that feels very reminiscent, including hiding things in random blocks in the wall (but with a map marker to tell you where to look). The game is quite successful in generating a metroidvania map, at least in my singular run, and it actually felt surprisingly close to exploring a hand-crafted world. Unlike Metroid, you can find some crazy roguelite pick-ups that allow you to do things that Samus can't. I ended up with some bot I don't know what it did, a bot that collected scrap and turned it into nanobots that attack enemies for me, as well as shots that scaled in size and rate of fire based on my scrap and HP and that also split upon impact. I wasn't kidding when I said I didn't try on the final boss; all I did was hold the "aim diagonally" button and the shot button and I just stood there. The split shot killed all the adds and even shot the bullets out of the air while the boss HP bar slowly drained.
While this game does have Isaac-like unlocks that seem to add and expand to the game (called "The Fleshening" here), and the game is also nicely designed in that it doesn't serve all areas or bosses up in one run and there would have been more for me to explore, but I already feel done with the game now that I've beaten it so quickly, and it doesn't help that I'm not the biggest of oldschool Metroid's combat. I like the exploration, atmosphere and style of Metroid, but I've never liked the floaty jump or the weak gun, and while you do get upgraded to be much stronger than Samus, as per above, that doesn't feel like enough for me to want to sit through the boring first 20 minutes in repeated runs, especially not after having already won so easily.
And, not to brag about my superior skills, but I'm not really sure why people call this game hard. While I obviously lucked out in what items I found, the game is also very cheeseable in that, if you take some bad damage, you can always just walk in and out of a room while killing easy respawning enemies for HP, weapon energy and scrap and be fit for fight in no-time. This is why other roguelites don't respawn their enemies and lock you into combat rooms!
Too short and easy for me, with not incentive to go back and play more since I don't believe that it'll change enough, and it bummed me out that there's no permanent progression system that makes the early game a little more fun with each subsequent run, but it's a competent Metroid-alike that people who can't get enough of Metroid's combat gameplay will probably love.
The game itself is pretty much just Metroid: The Roguelite. Plays and flows more or less exactly as the oldschool 2D Metroids do, perhaps specifically Super Metroid. Same movement pattern with the floaty, spinny jump and same pretty weak (at first) pew-pew pea-shooter, and level design that feels very reminiscent, including hiding things in random blocks in the wall (but with a map marker to tell you where to look). The game is quite successful in generating a metroidvania map, at least in my singular run, and it actually felt surprisingly close to exploring a hand-crafted world. Unlike Metroid, you can find some crazy roguelite pick-ups that allow you to do things that Samus can't. I ended up with some bot I don't know what it did, a bot that collected scrap and turned it into nanobots that attack enemies for me, as well as shots that scaled in size and rate of fire based on my scrap and HP and that also split upon impact. I wasn't kidding when I said I didn't try on the final boss; all I did was hold the "aim diagonally" button and the shot button and I just stood there. The split shot killed all the adds and even shot the bullets out of the air while the boss HP bar slowly drained.
While this game does have Isaac-like unlocks that seem to add and expand to the game (called "The Fleshening" here), and the game is also nicely designed in that it doesn't serve all areas or bosses up in one run and there would have been more for me to explore, but I already feel done with the game now that I've beaten it so quickly, and it doesn't help that I'm not the biggest of oldschool Metroid's combat. I like the exploration, atmosphere and style of Metroid, but I've never liked the floaty jump or the weak gun, and while you do get upgraded to be much stronger than Samus, as per above, that doesn't feel like enough for me to want to sit through the boring first 20 minutes in repeated runs, especially not after having already won so easily.
And, not to brag about my superior skills, but I'm not really sure why people call this game hard. While I obviously lucked out in what items I found, the game is also very cheeseable in that, if you take some bad damage, you can always just walk in and out of a room while killing easy respawning enemies for HP, weapon energy and scrap and be fit for fight in no-time. This is why other roguelites don't respawn their enemies and lock you into combat rooms!
Too short and easy for me, with not incentive to go back and play more since I don't believe that it'll change enough, and it bummed me out that there's no permanent progression system that makes the early game a little more fun with each subsequent run, but it's a competent Metroid-alike that people who can't get enough of Metroid's combat gameplay will probably love.