8.5/10

(Important tips for achievement hunters and in general in the end)

Great game all the way that deserves so much more attention and players than it currently has!
Its so immersive for a sidescroller, the whole scifi/space and lone spacecowboy killing undead in the desert atmosphere was so good and its one of those rare games in its genre that has it all.

There is looting and crafting and some exploring, the world is not huge but its a lot for this type of game.
There is lots of killing zombies and evil corp guys, and occasionally getting blown up by a landmine or dying because u ran in like the immortal hero that u are not and got overwhelmed .
Then u return after each little map to ur ship and u can craft and prepare for the next round, or take a nap.
There is perhaps not enough need for the general crafted items on normal mode as there prob would be on hard mode, and personally I ended up with a lot of unused surplus mats I could prob have sold instead, but it has a great crafting system and lots of storage, and I guess also good for those tht like to roleplay more than the average player?

There is a good story and notes to the game, and some fun short lines from the npc's and mobs sometimes.
The visuals are also good.

The game has a lot of options for a side scroller and a fully custumizable keybind remapping, which is always a bonus in my book!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3327617519

Ensora also has, in my oppinion, one of the absolute best and most epic introductions Ive seen so far, certainly for a sidescroller. The images and 'to the point' short bkstory going in and the matching song to go with it, was superb and perfectly fit the theme and mood!
The menu screen/pause music while in the game was so epic and Ive been trying to find these 2 titles to play outside of the game tbh lol.
The sounds and effects were good too, everything just fit really well into the atmosphere.

-
Some good/must know tips to know b4 u start:

The hacking stuff is hard to learn at first but easy once u figure it out, and have gotten familiar with the symbols.
The nb 1 tip here I can give u is to not click any symbol unless ur sure its the right one, as it otherwise consumes one of ur decoders if u fail the hack entirely. Decoders is needed to be able to hack the doors, turrets and chests and u craft these on ur ship.
Use this to ur advantage and let the timer run out while u familiarize urself with the letters and learn to see which one is which when they are overlapped, which at first is confusing as *** :P
Also be sure to upgrade ur hacking skill! You do this in the Free City.
There u can also upgrade ur armor, ship, bike and guns. This helps in the long end with everything.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3333061571

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3327617297


The mats needed to upgrade ur confidence and pewpew stuff are not that hard to get, just loot everything u can (but prioritize, ur inventory space is not that big), craft the stuff thats needed, and make sure they are located in ur >ship containers<, not ur inventory, when u go to the upgrade panel.
The anticrystals can be hard to get at first and I personally didnt know u could deconstruct some items to help get them untill I read his guide.
The dev made a good guide himself on how to get them.

For achievement hunters:
Its important to note that once u reach the end of the story and fly bk to the Free City, u can no longer fly anywhere else and is forced into the final battle. You will know when as the story kind of tells u, but its after u are told to go read some notes in the topright map and u are told to return to the Free city for the final part.
This means if u have unfinished business and need 50 more kills, 3k more money for the 25k acvhievement etc, that u do this b4 u go bk to the Free city.
You can however still do these afterwards as ur game save is not deleted, BUT everything in ur ship containers are emptied (because of the story I think, which I wont spoil). Inventory items are kept tho.
While u can still fly around and do what u want after the game ends, u will need to loot stuff again and depending on which acvhiements u miss and want, it can either be a lot or just little xtra looting and crafting.
You will however get most of the acvhievements naturally as u play the game and it doesnt take long and much effort to get them all.


For some reason steams screenshot overlay stuff doesnt work in this game.
To work around this so that u can upload images do the following:
*Find ur games app id nb, which for me is 2112210. You can see this in the game's properties settings, or by right clicking the game icon and looking under appid.
*Find ur steam remote folder, which for Linux uses look something like this, also for windows users I think:
/home/urname/.local/share/Steam/userdata/89509158/760/remote
*Create a folder with ur game's appid name.
*within that folder u create another folder called screenshots

It should look something like this in the end:
/home/urname/.local/share/Steam/userdata/89509158/760/remote/2112210/screenshots

Now u simply use any external screenshop app to take in game pics with such as OBS, or in my case using Spectacle, manually drag and drop ur game images into that folder and the images will be loaded in ur steam game folder (require steam restart)
-

I caught only a few bugs, one was a sound effect loop that fixed itself after a restart and another is the gun aim that 2 times insisted on staying on one side only, for a few seconds. And one rooftop spot got me stuck twice but I could roll/glitch out of it eventually. But these were minor stuff and nothing compared to the greatness of it all!
And I have almost 50 hours in this game played. It can ofc be completed in a lot less.
The game also saves every time ur on the ship, maybe more times too? and each map zone is not long so u wont loose much progress if something happens or if u have to make a quick exit.
But if u die out on the battlefield u need to restart that map, but the maps are not really that long.
.

I already miss this game tbh and I was pleasantly surprised by its depth and immersiveness when I came across it somewhat randomly and I really enjoyed playing it and think it will be hard to find something similar with the same vibe as ensora.

And I will forever remember and treasure that moment on the ship where I first equipped the rifle gun and the perfect timing of the ships information note popped up below and said 'attitude gained'.
'Yeah!' I thought, thats right! Come at me undead!
I later noticed it said 'altitude' and not 'attitude' ofc, but to me it will always say ATTITUDE!

I can highly recommend this game, also if ur new to sidescrollers!
The price is fair.


-CachyOS Linux