awesome art direction and music, some occasional cool shit like the platformer levels, ui and game mechanics are a bit unclear and left me wondering 'huh so what exactly is this game's hook again like what am i even doing this for', gameplay loop and combat is just,, fine?? and i wish there was more story woven into the actual game.
lots of potential here and i'll be revisiting when the game fully releases but all in all my experience with this game was noticing all the inspiration drawn from hades and wishing that it'd drawn just a little bit more.

definition of cozy gaming. the visuals are absolutely stunning and the soundtrack is definitely going in a cafe playlist or two, and the gameplay although simple has fun puzzles and the sound design makes everything feel amazing to do. the only place where it drags is in the middle where the puzzles just kinda feel stupid and tedious. the camera within an 'animated' space is so genius i can't even begin to fathom how they went about the technicalities of that. there's only one area that i felt didn't feel 3D enough, and that was in the free dlc, which was pretty good though less engaging than the main chapters.
my only complaint would be that the story didn't wrap up neatly enough and that some things didn't really add up, since there just wasn't enough information by the end for any solid conclusion about the big twist to be drawn and when the credits started rolling i was just kinda like 'wait what', which is unfortunate. Everything else in this game is polished and charming to a fault, and definitely made a great two hours spent. Would absolutely love a spiritual sequel with better more cohesive writing.

i can't quite pinpoint what exactly rhythm doctor's charm is. maybe it's the pixelart, maybe it's the heartfelt dialogue, maybe it's the absolute bop of an ost, but i think it's a mix of that and its creative level design. and the fact that im talking about LEVEL DESIGN for a rhythm game really should say enough, the way it manages to tell stories through each level truly something amazing. act 2 is where the game peaks, but the new act 5 boss might just be one of the best things i've had the pleasure of witnessing.

this game has a constant identity crisis with what it aspires to be (zelda) and what it actually implements (dark souls, though not entirely). the zelda-y parts are amazing and the manual is an absolute standout in how it gets you to figure out stuff with little to no verbal communication at all, and i hope to see more stuff like this in future games. however, the dark souls part is...who thought it was a good idea to make combat and movement clunky as hell and then decide 'yeah let's throw some hard enemies at the player too bc that's going to be fun!'
what tunic does well it does Really well, and there's a lot to be learned from here. it's a genuine shame that it's hard to appreciate those great aspects because of how plainly bad the combat is designed.