DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I went in expecting expecting a top-down metroidvania, but I got a side-scrolling metroidvania instead. That is my fault, though, as I mistook this game for Crypt Custodian, which is this developer's upcoming project.
I find this game's upgrade system very interesting. Every time you find an upgrade point hidden somewhere in the overworld you get to choose between three possible upgrades. This makes every secret equally as important and valuable, be it in the begining of the game or close to the end. The only problem I find with this system is that the pool of upgrades does not match the amount of upgrade points in the game. If I understand corrwectly, this is so that you can always prioritize upgrades for the abilities that you commonly use, and ignore the ones you rarely utilize. But going into the game without this knowledge, I assumed I would eventually have to get the upgrades I didn't care about, therefore wasting points I could have spent on base stat upgrades like health.
Additionally to these upgrade points, you can spend currency to buy base stat upgrades (health, sword damage, and arrow damage) which increase in price with each purchase. This makes sense until you realize that the prize also increases when you upgrade these stats with upgrade points, therefore making it more profitable to buy upgrades in the shop first and only THEN getting upgrade points rather than the other way around. These shop upgrades also seem to lack a ceiling. This means that the game always has a place to sink your currency and also allows you to farm currency in order to get stronger in case you are struggling against a boss. This would make for a great accesibility option, but it should be advertised as such, because in my case I bought these upgrades without thinking much about it and, despite playing in hard, I still ended up demolishing through bosses before they could even change into their second phase. This made later fights a bit of a disappointment. I could have refrained from attacking in order to experience the fights correctly, but I believe it shouldn't be on the player to balance their own experience.
Currency can also be used to buy a couple upgrades for your map, like markers. But once you buy all three of them (which are quite cheap) money can only be used on stats. The only other upgrades you can buy are for your airship, but these take no currency and instead use macguffins, so they end up working just as metroidvania gating mechanics.
The upgrades your character gets generally improve your movement, which might be this game's greatest asset. You also get two different types of arrows which are needed to get through certain sections. They are, however, very cumbersome to use and quite useless during combat. I see this as a missed opportunity since the airship upgrades are definitely necessary during bossfights and they make for great attack patterns.
Most bossfights had interesting attacks and having healthbars is appreciated. Minor enemies, though, felt just like annoyances during exploration. The world was well designed with secret paths abound, though the puzzles were a bit lacking. Having islands connect together creating new paths where there were only dead-ends made for a great "explore-get upgrade-connect island-more to explore" loop, particularly during the third and fourth islands.
The story was mediocre, though there might be more lore than what I managed to gleam; but the characters, on the other hand, were amazing. Each of them filled with personality, backstory and character arcs. A smile came to my face every time one of them showed up. I never manged to unpetrify that one character, I don't know what I missed, but I still feel bad about it.
Overall, despite my complaints I enjoyed this game quite a bit. I recommend it to all metroidvania fans, just go in with two things in mind: Try to keep your shop upgrades to a minimum in order to not have a completely unbalanced experience; and when getting upgrade points, always prioritize the ones you care about and ignore the ones you won't use.
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.
I went in expecting expecting a top-down metroidvania, but I got a side-scrolling metroidvania instead. That is my fault, though, as I mistook this game for Crypt Custodian, which is this developer's upcoming project.
I find this game's upgrade system very interesting. Every time you find an upgrade point hidden somewhere in the overworld you get to choose between three possible upgrades. This makes every secret equally as important and valuable, be it in the begining of the game or close to the end. The only problem I find with this system is that the pool of upgrades does not match the amount of upgrade points in the game. If I understand corrwectly, this is so that you can always prioritize upgrades for the abilities that you commonly use, and ignore the ones you rarely utilize. But going into the game without this knowledge, I assumed I would eventually have to get the upgrades I didn't care about, therefore wasting points I could have spent on base stat upgrades like health.
Additionally to these upgrade points, you can spend currency to buy base stat upgrades (health, sword damage, and arrow damage) which increase in price with each purchase. This makes sense until you realize that the prize also increases when you upgrade these stats with upgrade points, therefore making it more profitable to buy upgrades in the shop first and only THEN getting upgrade points rather than the other way around. These shop upgrades also seem to lack a ceiling. This means that the game always has a place to sink your currency and also allows you to farm currency in order to get stronger in case you are struggling against a boss. This would make for a great accesibility option, but it should be advertised as such, because in my case I bought these upgrades without thinking much about it and, despite playing in hard, I still ended up demolishing through bosses before they could even change into their second phase. This made later fights a bit of a disappointment. I could have refrained from attacking in order to experience the fights correctly, but I believe it shouldn't be on the player to balance their own experience.
Currency can also be used to buy a couple upgrades for your map, like markers. But once you buy all three of them (which are quite cheap) money can only be used on stats. The only other upgrades you can buy are for your airship, but these take no currency and instead use macguffins, so they end up working just as metroidvania gating mechanics.
The upgrades your character gets generally improve your movement, which might be this game's greatest asset. You also get two different types of arrows which are needed to get through certain sections. They are, however, very cumbersome to use and quite useless during combat. I see this as a missed opportunity since the airship upgrades are definitely necessary during bossfights and they make for great attack patterns.
Most bossfights had interesting attacks and having healthbars is appreciated. Minor enemies, though, felt just like annoyances during exploration. The world was well designed with secret paths abound, though the puzzles were a bit lacking. Having islands connect together creating new paths where there were only dead-ends made for a great "explore-get upgrade-connect island-more to explore" loop, particularly during the third and fourth islands.
The story was mediocre, though there might be more lore than what I managed to gleam; but the characters, on the other hand, were amazing. Each of them filled with personality, backstory and character arcs. A smile came to my face every time one of them showed up. I never manged to unpetrify that one character, I don't know what I missed, but I still feel bad about it.
Overall, despite my complaints I enjoyed this game quite a bit. I recommend it to all metroidvania fans, just go in with two things in mind: Try to keep your shop upgrades to a minimum in order to not have a completely unbalanced experience; and when getting upgrade points, always prioritize the ones you care about and ignore the ones you won't use.