Pseudoregalia is incredibly fun when you get the hang of it. For me, it took a bit to get the game under my thumbs but there were moments of fluidity that felt amazing. The sense of growth in the short playtime this game comes with is quick and rewarding.

There were times where I felt the game was fighting against me or was a bit clunky controlwise. Ledge grabs felt inconsistent, combat was a bit wonky, but it worked for the most part. The actual metroid-vania aspect of this game isn't handled very well, in my opinion. While the moveset you get is varied and interesting, the lack of a proper map system and areas that all look and feel the same leads to tons of running in circles and rechecking rooms. Something as simple as a marker on the map that indicates that something is in the room would've helped a ton (which is why most other games in this genre do this). The most frustrating parts of this game are when you feel like you have very little direction, because you find yourself running through the same small corridors repeatedly. On the topic of the small corridors, the camera does not agree with a lot of this game's geometry. I understand cameras in a 3D space are hard to work around, but it seemed that in most cases areas were either far to tightly packed and hard to navigate (Underbelly) or so big I couldn't see what was next (Theater, Bailey). Trying to navigate these tight spaces with minimal vison was mildly frustrating, and happened fairly often for me.

I really wanted to love this game after hearing all the fanfare, but I just think it's pretty good. Maybe it's a skill issue, but my time with this game was pretty rocky.