Played via the UK PSN release on an OLED Vita.
This game does Its damndest to disuade you from playing right at the start - with an intense difficulty, linear progression and slow combat scenarios, it just doesn't feel immediately fun to play as a metroidvania. You'll soon unlock traversal upgrades and health/gun modifications but they don't serve to make the game much more interesting than in its base state and even revisiting a level is always slow and tedious due to the lack of any unlockable shortcuts.
The challenge from the game comes from limiting health pickups and checkpoints to right before a level's boss, placing effort on survival of long stretches of platforming sequences and enemies. It's difficult to say if I ever learned to enjoy the challenge myself since your starting health and gun make it feel woefully unfair at the beginning of the game whilst later game sequences can feel boring or frustrating. This is all prelude to a boss that is exactly the same as all the other bosses in the game too, plus or minus a new attack to adapt to.
The art and sound are fine for what they are, certainly nothing bad but not standing out particularly either. The only thing that sticks in my mind is how ridiculously adorable the 7-8 identical bosses were, I kinda felt bad killing them.
Overall Xeodrifter is fine - it has design issues surrounding its level layouts and upgrade progression, and while there is a highly competent game here to control, it just can't save a forgettable experience.
This game does Its damndest to disuade you from playing right at the start - with an intense difficulty, linear progression and slow combat scenarios, it just doesn't feel immediately fun to play as a metroidvania. You'll soon unlock traversal upgrades and health/gun modifications but they don't serve to make the game much more interesting than in its base state and even revisiting a level is always slow and tedious due to the lack of any unlockable shortcuts.
The challenge from the game comes from limiting health pickups and checkpoints to right before a level's boss, placing effort on survival of long stretches of platforming sequences and enemies. It's difficult to say if I ever learned to enjoy the challenge myself since your starting health and gun make it feel woefully unfair at the beginning of the game whilst later game sequences can feel boring or frustrating. This is all prelude to a boss that is exactly the same as all the other bosses in the game too, plus or minus a new attack to adapt to.
The art and sound are fine for what they are, certainly nothing bad but not standing out particularly either. The only thing that sticks in my mind is how ridiculously adorable the 7-8 identical bosses were, I kinda felt bad killing them.
Overall Xeodrifter is fine - it has design issues surrounding its level layouts and upgrade progression, and while there is a highly competent game here to control, it just can't save a forgettable experience.