absolutely delightful and nourishingly quick.

the writing's plenty rough, but to be expected from the studio that cut its teeth on Life is Strange. The general vibe is tight as hell though, and the narrative is really captivating

It's a shame that there's no real sense of distance as you work your way up the tower - but the climbing is so rock solid that i have no reason to be thinking beyond the next tasty foothold

game b̴̢̃r̷͚͐0̷͚̕k̸͕͝è̵̲ on final boss

kind of staggering how little style there is here; there's barely any interesting variety between areas (with one exception); no standout setpieces (again, with one exception); the entire cast is boring as hell and the voice acting is ass (appreciate the inclusion of Persian though); the cutscenes are completely flavourless and even the glossy impact frames are lame at best and entirely inscrutable at worst; and all of this is paired with some of the most milquetoast powers to hit the genre - oh wow, you got a dash AND a double jump, now THIS IS GAMING - and truly heinous boss fight design.

that being said, the combat's slick and i appreciate that there are 5 useful amulets that let me kill everything in a couple hits. umm, also i suppose it's a metroid-vania, so i guess it gets a positive review for that alone.

Ubisoft saw Nintendo release a gorgeous, incredibly tight, largely linear, and highly polished Metroid game and decided to rip it off, but avoided any lawsuits by making it look bland, have exploration be meaningless for the first 5 hours and then do what feels like clean up for the next 10, and holding it all together with string (final boss and final power separately got softlocked so, i guess that's it)