This game is an incredible metroidvania with very fun combat and fluid movement that feels great even without every upgrade. The mechanics feel very fun, each new upgrade improving both movement and combat felt very good as more and more of the map unlocked. I love games that push the extents of their movement abilities, so the constant sets of platforming challenges were also incredibly fun. Enemies were plenty varied and fun to fight. Bosses had varied mechanics and interactions with combat that felt really fun to fight, even if initially a bit difficult. The plentiful quality of life was appreciated, especially with the memory shards helping with backtracking.

My main issues with the game were the environments, backtracking, and ending (spoiler free). While stunning to look at with nicely varied environments to explore, there were often rooms that felt empty. Sometimes there were just rooms that served no real purpose or even the lack of objects like pots and stuff to break made it less interesting to backtrack a lot. Small wish that I could have interacted with the environment a bit more, but not a huge issue. In regards to backtracking, I wish the fast travel system wasn't as inconvenient to get around. The fast travel points ranged from being in okay spots to being not very useful to backtrack to. I found myself running through the same rooms too often just to get to a new part of the map or come back to something I had marked. Lastly, the ending and resolution to the story didn't feel particularly satisfying to me. I felt like there were bits that were unresolved, or if they were, did not feel executed well.

Admittedly, most of my issues were pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, only the ending being my biggest let down from an otherwise fantastic game. I would love to be able to refight all the bosses too, so a replay might be warranted in the future.