A characterful metroidvania with unique pixel art, that feels like it was designed by someone who is obsessed with level design and spent many hours of their youth filling notebooks with miniature dungeons. This isn't to say it has The Best Level Design of All Time, just that its map is designed with a sense of care and attention to detail that is absent from much of the genre. Batbarian feels more like an old school dungeon crawler than most metroidvanias. It's not really like La-Mulana, because nothing really is, but in the intricacy and challenge of its dungeon, it’s more akin to La-Mulana than to other genre entries. The use of light and darkness is also unique among metroidvanias that I’ve played, and adds to that feeling of a dungeon crawl. If you want to explore a vast network of caves riddled with secrets, clever puzzles, and challenging enemies, this may be the game for you.

Of note are the assist options which let you tweak difficulty to your liking, and can be turned on and off at any time with no penalty. When I got sick of a certain boss, I just turned on increased defense and increased attack, beat the boss, and turned them back off. Excellent for people with, like, jobs, who can't spend an infinite amount of time on every video game challenge.

Should be said that I didn't actually finish the game. By the time I was about 90% through, finishing the game started to sound exhausting, so take that as you will.