Really sharply designed game with pretty unique progression. It's basically structured like Zelda 2 with top down exploration elements and random encounters before having more dedicated dungeons with traditional level design. They don't do much with the overworld in all honestly tho and it's basically just a glorified map like in the Mario games. There was basically only 2 parts where talking to NPCs led to you backtracking or have to use your head to find out where to go next

As for the design and gameplay I think that's really sharp. You can basically hover for a temporary amount of time and shoot. As you go along your moveset changes, getting more attacks, the ability to fly longer, and the ability to jump higher. The challenge scales as you go along too so it's always about the same difficulty but you feel more powerful as the gameplay gives you more freedom. There's an interesting shift in challenge as stuff goes along too. The fun of the early limitations is different to the fun of the later freedom.

Each batch of levels is basically built around your increasing arsenal. First limited attack and flight where you fire 1 bullet at a time and the challenge mostly surrounds carefully aiming and dodging as there's a huge risk to missing. This core gameplay loop is retained and iterated on but severely shifted with each upgrade. At first it's simple, just increasing your hover and giving you two attacks that can also break certain blocks. The design becomes a bit more open and aim is slightly less of a concern. Have a few levels where you have to strategically glide down too. Then you get a weapon that changes up how the spikes work, temporarily nullifying and letting you cling onto them. There's a great of mount of fun with the level design here now as there's a sense of verticality as you can now use the nullified spikes to climb upward but with complete freedom as to where you start and land. Spikes often line the ceiling too so you have to be very careful not to overshoot. Gliding can help in some forms of platforming challenges but they make sure they put stuff like that so there's a struggle constantly. In some ways it reminds me of Celeste as that plays around with wall climbing too tho I feel that approaches the same concept differently. This projectile also adds reintroduces the prior challenge of aim as you are limited to two shots, but if one gets stuck to a spike you only have 1, and if two are, you're helpless. So if you're being attacked while surrounded by spikes there's a lot of juggling. And that's not including when they start to introduce walls that only the previous attack can break forcing you to switch often. There's this great moment I noticed for this one boss where only that attack can hurt it is said attack and it forces you to switch to it before entering his room through the level design which I thought was a clever trick. The final upgrade to the attack is effectively the same as the original attack but stronger. Makes the original completely useless, but it was like that ever since you had another option so it's cool they somewhat find a way to bring it back by making it 1 shot but by far the strongest shot. Now there's a strength vs speed/aim risk to take into account and I think it's a fun challenge, although a type of challenge they could've had from the start. I don't really see why the starter shot couldn't be stronger and the existence of the strong shot doesn't really negate any of the benefits of the other attacks. The final levels also have a cool element of giving you unlimited flight instead of the temporary flight of earlier levels. Allows you to feel like you now have complete freedom but the design is also tweaked to give a new layer of challenge. Makes it feel fresh while still being an extension of everything before, especially with you having to juggle attacks and use all the skills you've gained.

My only real complaint is that it's so short. I kind of wish there were twice as many levels as there were. The shifts happen pretty fast and I wish I had a bit more time to dwell on each gameplay mode. There's a beautiful sense of progression but it also feels so rapid that I feel I'm missing out on some potential. But I guess that's what the sequels are for.

7.5/10