This review contains spoilers
TL;DR: Fun moments, but needs a little more oomph with combat and layout variety. A few questionable bossfights. Delta is mostly a mess.
First playthrough experience: A goofy adventure, with a few serious moments. There's not any pointers on what each weapon is most effective for what, so you'll figure out on your own or never truly do. This may be a good or bad thing depending on your perspective (personally some like that, but I think it's tedious for players to play poorly because of lacking knowledge, tainting their experience into tedium. First impressions are important!). Like a lot of games, I enjoyed it more on the subsequent playthroughs.
The art has a lot of charm, but sometimes I do wish there was more conveyance on what these locations are meant to be than checkerboard abstractions. Animations can be a little bit plain, but they are very readable.
It can be fun in short bursts, especially when you get the good strategies down. It doesn't kill your hands with needing many inputs. In the long run though, it does get a bit monotonous. The most effective strategy is the same for almost every time. (fire bombs, use boomerangs in at downtime intervals while holding fire, use crystal shots on small groups of enemies and go ham flaming flower shots with Delta). The dynamic experience of the game isn't so much the combat, but the rushing through, dodging and tanking hits.
There's two playable characters, Zeta and Delta;
Zeta is the ranged character, who's primarily made with the campaign in mind, and it shows. He also gets a schmup stage, exclusive boss phase and quiz skip. And a...rather tedious boss gauntlet. I thought I didn't like boss gauntlets but the real reason is probably that it's a bit slow and repetitive.
Unfortunately, a lot of weapons got removed in the final release, leaving you with just three. While this does result in tighter gameplay, I was hoping for potential different weapon choices or upgrades later on for some variety and feeling of reward (outside of beating levels).
Then there's Delta, the melee character. Her difficulty curve is like chilling about on a toddlers seesaw until suddenly - some overweight adult bodyslams on the other side and flips you over. And then you're back to chilling on it for a good while. In other words, she's overpowered 90% of the time and a challenge with...two bosses. As brainless as she can be, sometimes that can be just what you need after a stressful time. I just wish her difficulty curve was more balanced. Her story mode is also just a simulation so she feels like an afterthought.
Unlike Zeta, she doesn't have a preloaded selection of weapons, but types you can pick placed in the layout area. Melee damage boost, spread flowers and flaming flower. Unfortunately, they're not balanced so great. The "melee buff" weapon does the same damage as the flaming flower shot up close (which is the best weapon in the game). Oops. Since you want to be playing up close as much as possible, the overall gameplay experience stays the game. Maybe it would've been more interesting if these attacks changed the behaviour/utility of her melee moves, rather than a added projectile.
You can cheese many pre-boss sections by spamming dash across the screen, with not much actual layout to talk of. The only one that has an actual layout would be the lava chase (Scorchsear), where the lava isn't really a threat, but the pits are (with a particularly mean float-down area placed towards the end). I get that it's meant to be a boss rush game though I was kind of hoping for some more actual platforming when the level provides it. There's no incentive to kill pre-boss enemies asides from health pickups, so you can ignore them mostly.
So, bossfight designs! Overall, I like most of them. They almost always have something going on, but aren't overwhelming. And I do actually like the final boss and am happy that it has checkpoints between each phase. There are a few stinkers though, which are all bad for different reasons. Asides from the Zeta Sleeze boss gauntlet as prior mentioned, there's Xenocapsule that's random too fast and often, Phantom Theatre that has hilariously low health and virtually unavoidable attacks and Algid who has little health and some sudden attacks that take off half of your healthbar (this is irritating when you consider the next phase). Once you memorise the patterns it isn't so bad, but it's still questionable boss design.
Oh yeah, the OST. It's a heavily genesis/megadrive inspired medley that gets you pumped, or has a pleasant ambience. I was hoping for a little less reused tracks to freshen things up a bit more but they're not overbearingly recycled. Some levels are so short you barely get to hear the music, which is a shame.
As for post game content, there's a secret episode, a bonus episode and custom boss gauntlet to check out. But don't try to beat level 20 Ripulxor if you value your sanity (it was put there as a joke).
Unfortunately I can't really comment on the story because I forgot most of it but was desperate to get out this brainfart out before I forget.
Is it a good game? Yes. But not a great one.
First playthrough experience: A goofy adventure, with a few serious moments. There's not any pointers on what each weapon is most effective for what, so you'll figure out on your own or never truly do. This may be a good or bad thing depending on your perspective (personally some like that, but I think it's tedious for players to play poorly because of lacking knowledge, tainting their experience into tedium. First impressions are important!). Like a lot of games, I enjoyed it more on the subsequent playthroughs.
The art has a lot of charm, but sometimes I do wish there was more conveyance on what these locations are meant to be than checkerboard abstractions. Animations can be a little bit plain, but they are very readable.
It can be fun in short bursts, especially when you get the good strategies down. It doesn't kill your hands with needing many inputs. In the long run though, it does get a bit monotonous. The most effective strategy is the same for almost every time. (fire bombs, use boomerangs in at downtime intervals while holding fire, use crystal shots on small groups of enemies and go ham flaming flower shots with Delta). The dynamic experience of the game isn't so much the combat, but the rushing through, dodging and tanking hits.
There's two playable characters, Zeta and Delta;
Zeta is the ranged character, who's primarily made with the campaign in mind, and it shows. He also gets a schmup stage, exclusive boss phase and quiz skip. And a...rather tedious boss gauntlet. I thought I didn't like boss gauntlets but the real reason is probably that it's a bit slow and repetitive.
Unfortunately, a lot of weapons got removed in the final release, leaving you with just three. While this does result in tighter gameplay, I was hoping for potential different weapon choices or upgrades later on for some variety and feeling of reward (outside of beating levels).
Then there's Delta, the melee character. Her difficulty curve is like chilling about on a toddlers seesaw until suddenly - some overweight adult bodyslams on the other side and flips you over. And then you're back to chilling on it for a good while. In other words, she's overpowered 90% of the time and a challenge with...two bosses. As brainless as she can be, sometimes that can be just what you need after a stressful time. I just wish her difficulty curve was more balanced. Her story mode is also just a simulation so she feels like an afterthought.
Unlike Zeta, she doesn't have a preloaded selection of weapons, but types you can pick placed in the layout area. Melee damage boost, spread flowers and flaming flower. Unfortunately, they're not balanced so great. The "melee buff" weapon does the same damage as the flaming flower shot up close (which is the best weapon in the game). Oops. Since you want to be playing up close as much as possible, the overall gameplay experience stays the game. Maybe it would've been more interesting if these attacks changed the behaviour/utility of her melee moves, rather than a added projectile.
You can cheese many pre-boss sections by spamming dash across the screen, with not much actual layout to talk of. The only one that has an actual layout would be the lava chase (Scorchsear), where the lava isn't really a threat, but the pits are (with a particularly mean float-down area placed towards the end). I get that it's meant to be a boss rush game though I was kind of hoping for some more actual platforming when the level provides it. There's no incentive to kill pre-boss enemies asides from health pickups, so you can ignore them mostly.
So, bossfight designs! Overall, I like most of them. They almost always have something going on, but aren't overwhelming. And I do actually like the final boss and am happy that it has checkpoints between each phase. There are a few stinkers though, which are all bad for different reasons. Asides from the Zeta Sleeze boss gauntlet as prior mentioned, there's Xenocapsule that's random too fast and often, Phantom Theatre that has hilariously low health and virtually unavoidable attacks and Algid who has little health and some sudden attacks that take off half of your healthbar (this is irritating when you consider the next phase). Once you memorise the patterns it isn't so bad, but it's still questionable boss design.
Oh yeah, the OST. It's a heavily genesis/megadrive inspired medley that gets you pumped, or has a pleasant ambience. I was hoping for a little less reused tracks to freshen things up a bit more but they're not overbearingly recycled. Some levels are so short you barely get to hear the music, which is a shame.
As for post game content, there's a secret episode, a bonus episode and custom boss gauntlet to check out. But don't try to beat level 20 Ripulxor if you value your sanity (it was put there as a joke).
Unfortunately I can't really comment on the story because I forgot most of it but was desperate to get out this brainfart out before I forget.
Is it a good game? Yes. But not a great one.