Having played many metroidvanias I (eventually) appreciated how it makes movement more restrictive but fine-tunes it's difficulty as a result so you can't really steamroll bosses. Progress is fairly slow except for the charms, so character builds can be quite important and I would recommend switching things around for different bosses after respawning at the bench.

The final area was an absolute nightmare and I didn't appreciate being forced to play what was essentially Super Meat Boy with less interesting physics and hazards clearly placed just to make every single normal jump into a needle-threading exercise.

I would have preferred if they designed the map to have a couple of sideways tubes or something so you could use Crystal Heart, it was a bit annoying having a random small enemy or bit of geometry breaking up otherwise completely straight pathways and my speed boost with it. A game this long with combat this basic did not need to be so restrictive with travel options right up until the last quarter or so; I was begging for more bosses to just show up and kick my shit in at many points to break up the long repeated journeys.

I enjoyed my time with this game after taking about 4 attempts to get properly into that metroidvania-type obsession of uncovering every unexplored part of the map. I was getting a little tired of the lack of combat variety and limited player movement considering how long this game is but I overall enjoyed it and appreciate what it brings new to an otherwise samey genre. Though some of those conventions were there for a reason and the progression could have been tweaked to allow at least a bit more freedom a little earlier on.