This is an incredible, little Metroidvania. The core mechanic borrows from Ikaruga, but the tug of war between three pools of health and how you both regain and avoid damage remains tactical and crunchy through the whole game. Even if the game doesn’t necessarily transcend, between solid writing, a genuinely addicting craps-a-like, a roster of great boss fights, fluid pixel art (especially on the bosses), and an impeccable rhythm in the spiraling discovery of the map this game feels worthy of its inheritance in a way few Metroidvanias do.

It’s a shame that a game with this much potential is this game instead.

Metroidvania + Bullet Hell is an inherently good idea for a game. And even better than that, this is actually great execution on that idea. The map is large, non-linear and full of secrets. The boss battles are challenging but fun and rewarding. The soundtrack is also great.

Unfortunately, in between all the great stuff, the map is littered with uninteresting enemies and worst of all: cutscenes. The writing in this game is truly terrible. The overall plot ranges from nonsensical to purely bad, but the dialogue is consistently atrocious. On top of that, the character design is a a parade of adolescent girls and your reward for beating them in a fight is a full screen drawing of them slightly sexier than normal. Also, the final boss is devastatingly hard to the point where I was no longer having fun.

Overall, I can’t say if this was worth it for me. If the negatives don’t put you off, there is excellent gameplay to experience here.