Great action platformer chocked full of fascinating Taiwanese culture. Love the comic book like visuals and the music with Chinese instruments. Feels great to play too, movement and combat are fluid and satisfying.

I wanted to like this game, cool aesthetic and all. Seemed like it was gonna be a fun time but the combat, unfortunately, is like Dead Cells if they never smoothed out all the kinks. Big disappointment.

I didn't get too far into this one. I went off to an area I clearly wasn't meant to go to so early and tooled around there a bit. Lost all my health there and couldn't find a way to recover it. Finally I went off to the training grounds I was meant to go to and promptly died at some spikes because I had no health. Apparently there is no autosaving feature or anything because it just Game Overed me and I had to reboot the save which started me at the beginning and after that I was done. I am sure this game has a lot more to offer if some actual time is put into it, I barely got to experience the game I think so I can't say much about it unfortunately.

Sidescrolling shooter with artwork by the guy would go on to do Cho Aniki. Very mid. Environments were drab and boring, enemies weren't particularly interesting. There were red and blue orbs you could collect, I think the blue ones made your attack more powerful, I don't know what the red ones did. There were also some scrolls you could find that would allow you to do some kind of special move but they kinda sucked. I gave it the ol' college try but this one was a miss

After an absurd struggle to get my controls set up properly in retroarch, I dug into this much lauded Genesis classic. Fantastic pixel art in the opening cinematics, really gets you excited. The main character has some serious swagger going on, remarked upon by multiple observers independent of one another. The combat is a bit janky but I was having a good time with it. That is, until I got to the first boss, which was a very frustrating encounter. There was the tiniest little zone that you could actually stand in and hit the boss. Move a millimeter closer and you would fall down, a millimeter farther away and your attack would fall short. I still managed to take it out on the second try, which opened up several new mechanics, which I didn't get much of a chance to check out. The only thing that makes me not want to play more is the fear that subsequent boss fights might be as frustrating as the first.

As a big fan of the original I was seriously bummed out with the direction they went with this game visually. I got used to as best I could, but it's still a bummer.

Only played the first realm really, side-scrolling stuff was mediocre at best, but I really enjoyed the realm management parts. Would like to play more if I didn't have more pressing games to play.

This review contains spoilers

A wonderful game with artwork as appealing as any game I've ever played. The music is fantastic. Unfortunately I feel like it was really lacking in the writing department. It had some good stuff there and some real good moments, but it feels like it really needed something. If it had had the kind of whimsical wit of a Mother game I think it could have been an All-Timer.

Feels like a 2D, eldritch horror, Resident Evil 1 style game. If that sounds good to you you'll probably like this game a lot more than me. Wasn't really my kind of game, but it was worth playing.

This game was so intense, so spooky and unsettling I shelved it after just a an hour or so. That's not an indictment, that's high praise. That's just how good this game is at creating a stressful atmosphere of dread.

A delightful little game filled to the brim with charm. It was so delightful, in fact, that I was actually quite disappointed that it couldn't deliver more. I hope they make a bigger and better sequel.

2021

One of the most beautiful games I have ever played. I often found myself simply agog, staring at the gorgeous scenery and background.

Not overly long, laden with atmosphere and intriguing mystery. Well worth your time if you're a metroidvania fan, or a Dark Souls fan.

Really cool game, absolutely dripping with atmosphere and vibe. It's like if WWI was written by Frank Herbert and made into a game by the makers of Missile Command.

The game is difficult, frustrating, and quite fun. There is so much more depth than I had the constitution to explore. I wish there was an easy mode honestly but I respect this game so much for being what it is and compromising its vision.

This game has a lot of cool stuff going for it, if you're interested I definitely recommend it. The dialogue in particular is really charming and amusing, probably my favorite part of the game. The combat is pretty fun as well, although I found a lot of the artwork during the combat to be kinda ugly and not as good as the rest of the artwork in the game generally.

The overall rogue-lite aspect of the game is kinda disappointing too, it took so long to get through one playthrough it hardly feels like a rogue-lite and they even seem to have some sort of Nemesis system in there a-la Shadmor, but it never even came into play for me.

Really hoping they make another one because I think if they put more time and polish into it it could really be something special!

I have probably replayed this game more times over the years more than any other game. There's nothing else quite like it. The whole vibe so so great, the visuals own, the setting is wonderful. A lot of stuff really fell into place too once I finally read The Jesus Incident by Dune author Frank Herbet. The extensive manual mentions this in the back as one of the primary influences for the story and setting and they aren't lying! If you really love the setting of this game I highly recommend reading The Pandora Sequence series by Herbert, they are wild and amazing.

Wanted to like this more than I did. I adore that it is doing some things very reminiscent of Act Raiser, but the actual gameplay feels a bit lack luster.

The side scrolling portions are ok but feel a bit boring and the overworld stuff I wish had a bit more complexity to it.

Holding out hope that they'll make a sequel or a similar game and improve upon these things, a lot of cool stuff in here that could really shine if they put more into it I think.