Got an itch to play it again, and I'm glad I did. Just like before, this is a solid action game that I enjoyed every moment of. I've grown to appreciate the walks between fights as a chance to reflect on the story and to take a deep breath before the next boss.

All that being said, it's still not a very complex action game, the story still doesn't work for me, and I still find it really easy. The only time I died was to the true final boss, which is so boring that I still haven't beaten it and don't feel like beating in general.

I like it more than I did before. I think that marathoning the whole thing in a day was a good choice as well. For a game this short and action heavy, playing in one go helps keep the pace feeling smooth.

Also, the soundtrack is bumpin, and now that I've played the game again, I notice that they hide the names of songs in the dialogue before the boss fight they appear in. Clever little trick there, developers.

This is a Zelda game. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. The purple bunny is Ravio, and this game takes place in an alternate timeline where Hilda decided to turn Lorule into the new Alcatraz.

Anyway...

Walked away from it thinking "Yea, that was pretty good." It's like a mix between Hyper Light Drifter's very barebones combat mechanics and Nier: Automata's bullet-hell-ridden boss fights. And it's nothing BUT boss fights.

I remember I used to be really ambivalent to this game, and then all of a sudden I really wanted to play it. Now that it's under my belt, I guess I'm underwhelmed, even if I enjoyed every moment of it. I think that since I knew it was nothing but boss fights, I went in expecting it to be similar to the data fights from Kingdom Hearts II and III, but it's not anywhere close to that. Neither your moveset nor the bosses' movesets are anywhere near as complex as those fights are. And there's nothing wrong with a simple combat system; for as simple as this one is, it's executed exceptionally well. I loved every single fight (except for one or two that were too easy), but because it lacks complexity, I'm not really that enthusiastic about it either. Then again, going in expecting it to be anywhere close to the data fights are very unrealistic expectations to put on any game.

One aspect of the game that I didn't care for, however, is the story. I see what it's trying to do: it's trying to be a commentary on violence and make you question the righteousness of your actions, but it didn't work for me because of how little of a reference point I had. I knew absolutely nothing about who I was or any of the circumstances surrounding my imprisonment. All I knew is that I got out of my cell, so I was going to do everything I could to get out of there, and anyone who got in my way was collateral damage. It's hard to feel compassion or question my morality when I have no context for anything that's happening. I think that Undertale and Katana Zero both do a much better job of tackling similar questions.

To be fair, I only got up to the credits and then stopped playing. I enjoyed my time with this, but I didn't enjoy it enough to want to keep playing. I tried the mothership fight but didn't really enjoy it so I never beat her. It's likely that there is more to the story that would be revealed after that point, so it might not be fair for me to make a call on the story as a whole, but it was too little too late for me personally.

Good game. Bout it