I can't express how refreshing it is to play a game that completely embraces weirdness for the sake of weirdness. Dandara's core mechanics are unorthodox so it's satisfying when it delivers on being an unorthodox non-linear platformer: deceptively simple gameplay that puts a strong emphasis on quick maneuvering and spur of the moment improvised decision-making leads to an arcade-y experience that's more Mega Man X than Super Metroid. Combine this with a story that's absolutely dead set on never giving you any straightforward answers whatsoever and you've got a stand-out example of a game that manages to fully differentiate itself from a genre that's becoming intimidatingly homogenized. However, that's also where Dandara's biggest shortcoming ends up being. For a game with this many out-of-the-box design choices, it's really disappointing when figuring out where to go next follows the standard procedure of simply looking at the map for exits you haven't gone through yet. The game also probably could've benefited from taking itself a little less seriously- even I got pretty fed up with it constantly sniffing its own farts.