Do you like your horror games with terribly cringy dialogue, infuriating and confusing chase sequences, and poorly handled subject matter?

Well do I have the game for you....

Am concerned for the future of this franchise.

(Positive aspect: Environment design was good at times).

This game fucking sucks. I backed this game like 2 years ago because it was a "ratoidvania". I went "Ooo teehee I like rats and Metroidvanias, i will back it!" (This guy has no idea what he is doing).

It starts out alright (despite the fact the opening cinematic is in 480p for some reason), kind of cool to see 4 different characters with different skill trees. I only tried one of them, so I don't know how well made that part is but the one I played was fine. One of the earliest annoyances is this game damages you for walking into enemies. I guess its normal for the genre but it im still gonna babyrage about it.

It kind of just felt like a sauceless Metroidvania until the turning point. There were some dudes trapped in a cage guarded by a dog. I did some item fetching and got the keys from the dog. The dudes in the cage said they weren't pirates and I should free them. I did so, (of course they were pirates) and they fucking robbed me of ALL the money I had gained so far (2,100). As far as I know there is no way to get that back, it feels so fucking malicious and basically ruined my play through.

Fighting bosses can give you the normal genre power ups, double jumps, dashes, etc. Those two I listed are the only 2 I got. It's almost impossible to fuck up a double jump so it was what you expect. The dash however is the worst fucking dash ever. You would expect a dash to move you pretty far horizontally for exploration purposes. No, this thing barely moves you at all and seems more for combat??. You can attack out of the dash, and I did find out this can extend your time in the air, but still feels like shit. It also doesn't lead to any new paths to explore once you get it.

It also kind of just felt empty while exploring the map. Like im thinking about my favourite Metroidvania's, or even the ones I think are kind of mid, and they all swim circles around this game. I am simply just walking around a map and going room to room, why?, idk cause I guess thats what you do.

The point where I quit was when all the paths I couldn't go were literally locked doors I needed keys for. I couldn't see any treasure chests on my map that I missed and could collect at that moment. There is one fetch quest I think I could do that needed me to get wool for an old lady. A merchant at the beginning of the game sells wool for 100 gold and 1500 gold. I had 1,000 gold at that moment (AFTER GETTING ALL MY MONEY STOLEN), so I bought the 100 gold wool. This old lady fucking goes "This wool is shit, you should get your money back, get me better wool next time." I am effectively stuck unless I want to fucking grind pennies out of enemies, waste of fucking time. This game really just punched my gut then waited 20 minutes to come back and twist my nuts. Fuck you.

I can't help but think I had a better overall experience with Breath of the Wild compared to this game. The sense of awe in exploring a new world was lost in this game that re-used most of the surface map. Shrines are so dumbed down and easy since its based on contraption puzzles way more. The depths are gruelingly repetitive and boring to get through and the game requires you to spend so much time in there if you want any of your contraptions to work for more than 2 seconds. By the time I had grinded enough zonaite for my creations to stick around I was so incredibly exhausted with the game and wanted to get it over with. All that was left was to wrap up the geoglyphs and wow the story is surprisingly good. The combat improvements using fused weapons and new items were also welcome additions. This really would have been a better experience with just a new surface map, I could do without the bland boring depths.