A retro inspired 3D platformer/metroidvania with all the shortcomings of the N64 era. A great idea ruined by making it complicated instead of embracing simplicity.

I will start by saying, I played this AFTER the map update. So don't tell me there is a map. This game was really disappointing tbh. I saw so many people express how tight the controls were and how fun it was. I did not have that experience. I found it to be an intensely frustrating game.

First off. The character is cool looking. Here animations are nice. The music is really good. Full of bangers. Areas are varied and have good theming. The story is a nothing burger. But that's fine. You can also unlock different costumes which is cool.

Let's get to the crux of the problem though. The controls. This game is intensely frustrating because it simply does not do it's main objective of platforming well. There are a few moves that are super unreliable. They are not consistent. They are jank. And anyone who says, "they just take time to get used to," is not being truthful. You can like the game, but you can also call it out for being jank.

Each move, has its intricacies. For example, you slide jump gets you more height on walls. There is a turn flip that the game never tells you about as far as I know. Each move you get not only increases your basic movement, but also increases your advanced movement sets. That's all and good until the game decides you need to be a master platformer. Then you get to fight with the controls.

The biggest offender of this the wall jump. Not only does your angle matter, but also your distance from the wall. It is extremely jank and frustrating. You will constantly fight it. You will fail to grab edges because of it. It's infuriating.

The second worst offender is the wall run. It simply sometimes activates late or not at all. Although, I will say, you can break the game with. In corners you can spam the wall kicks and then spam wall run to gain crazy height. But only in corners. Now, why is the wall run so jank? It's because instead of you simply, holding the button and wall running, you also have to hold a direction. I know that doesn't sound that bad, but in a game like Prince of Persia 2008, you literally just hold the button and it knows to automatically wall run the direction you are facing.

The intricacies are great but at the same time get in the way of the basic platforming. It causes what should be an easy move to then be frustrating to grasp.

Level design ranges from fun to frustrating to nonsensical. Sometimes it feels like the rooms are just randomly cobbled together. Sometimes in ways to simply annoy. Like, let's put a large block on a smaller block. So when you jump up you hit your head. But it's a very simple jump. You just got to step back a bit. There is no need for that kinda thing.

Then there are rooms where you simply have no idea there is anything there unless you look at the mostly useless map. Like another door is hidden or officiated in infuriating ways.

Color palettes can make things extremely hard to see. Like I understand you are going for N64/PS1 textures. But I feel like they are better than what this game has to offer. Sometimes you legit cannot see your next jump because everything looks the same. Sometimes you next jump is high enough that the only way for you to know is exploratory jump and hope. The camera does not help. This would be solved by making the top texture having an outline. Ledges should be clear to see. But in this game they are not.

Darkness can be a very cool tool when used properly. Or it can make traversal extremely tedious and annoying. This game does the latter. With the color palette problem and the darkness, it is legit impossible to see things. There needs to either be more lighting in those darker areas or a different color palette. Not everything needs to be the same texture. But what adds insult to injury is your weapon glows. If you throw it, it glows more. Eventually you get an ability that makes it passively glow more, but it barely makes a difference. Also there is no brightness slider in the game. It's is beyond me why you would not add such a basic feature.

Now, let's talk about the map. This game has one of the single worst maps in a metroidvania game I have played. First off it was only put in the game, AFTER people complained enough about being lost. I do not understand why the launched a metroidvania without a map. Two, it lacks verticality. It's not a huge deal, but can make finding doors hard. Thirdly, there are no symbols on the map. It's insane to not put the player's position on the map. The entire room you are in glows green but you have no idea where you are in the room. It's the single worst design in this game. Adding a map was great, but it's not helpful without knowing where you are in the room. You just get lost so easily.

Combat is an afterthought. It's pretty basic and does what it needs to do. I do not understand why your range attack can also drain your magic. The same thing you use for healing. Especially when you can still do it without magic. I just find that to be a dumb choice. Like I get it is for a stronger attack. But it just is unnecessary.

Your vertical movement is very limited. Especially with no corners to exploit. As I talked about earlier, the wall jump is super unreliable and inconsistent. You can use it to gain height but it's incredibly jank. There is one reliable way to get vertical movement. This game was in need for a double jump or a Mario 64 consecutive jump mechanic. As I said earlier, there are many intricacies/advanced movement options. Yes they make help with height gain but yet again, are not easy to pull off.

The camera is a contant annoyance. Especially with wall running. I understand you wanted to make this authentic to the time, but you can leave some stuff in the past where they belong.

The game does not signpost itself well at all. It took me like 7 hours until I found my main objective. I was just exploring aimlessly exploring looking for powerups until then. It gives no direction. Thus cause you to be lost. You get a small hint once you find your main objective as to where to go next. Like I understand exploring and being lost is part of a metroidvania, but this is going too far. Like this felt as if you are playing the original Metroid. A game that understandably has no map due to the hardware at the time. But I would still say it has more signposting and a sense of direction than this game did.

The final boss is fun. It's very easy. I really enjoyed it. I'm glad the dev realized that combat is not the game's strong suit and just made it a fun fight. You can tank through it.

I kind of enjoyed this game. It really did disappoint me though. I wish the dev just made a normal wall jump. A normal wall run. There was no reason to make things as complicated as they are. I know a lot of people may say, "I got the hang of the advanced movement just fine." That's great. But it really hurts the experience. It takes simplicity and makes it way too complicated. It falls into the same traps the games from the actual era have that it is inspired by. It does not do enough to mitigate those problems. It's fine to be inspired but this is inspired to a fault.

I know I'm being hard on a game made by what I believe is a singular person. A passion project and game jam. I'm doing this to hopefully help them craft a better game next time. If you ever read this, I hope you understand that I'm not trying to be mean. I just feel like criticism is a good thing. You should be proud of what you made. Especially if it is your first game. It's not a bad game, just a flawed one.

This is a game I really wanted to like more than I did. But I ended up being more frustrated and annoyed than having fun.