A platformer with a mechanic so simply restrictive that it sounds daft:
You cannot move, only jump.

However, it works, and makes for a surprisingly fluid and fast paced action shooter.
Varied and challenging boss fights.

Some minor annoyances like heavy backtracking, a clunky manual checkpoint mechanic, a bit too many secret passages, and possibility to lose all your money if dying twice. But you could say these add an extra challenge.

Other than that a good 10-12 hours worth of action, possibly more if you want to ace every upgrade.

A wonderful little metroidvania with interesting movement and lovely pixel art. It's on the shorter side but it's high quality and unique experience that's definitely worth playing for any metroidvania fan!

Check out https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41559946 for more recommendations!

The art style is really nice and I love the pixel art. The controls and combat are very fresh and interesting.

There's a big difficulty spike after the 2nd boss and some of the mini bosses. The game has this interesting mechanic where two mini bosses become "regular" enemies; however, it does it in a way where there's something like 6 mini bosses in back-to-back rooms which each take a good amount of time to beat. Additionally, you haven't leveled up enough to where they feel easier. Instead you have to fight back-to-back enemies that take something like 4 hearts per hint, and it gets so repetitive, to the point that it doesn't feel like a cool mechanic; it just feels unfair and lazy.

Other than that, the game has been pretty fun. It would play a little better if the difficulty ramped up more naturally and if enemies had more variation.

A solid metroidvania with a unique mechanic of only being able to jump between walls. Sort of like in Ninja Gaiden, but wall jumping by default. This may seem unusual and limiting at first, but when you get the hang of it, you'll be zipping through areas like second nature. Alot of creativity was put not only into this mechanic but how it can be used to challenge the player and make for satisfying solutions to obstacles and enemies. You can be carefree and just shoot to any wall with salt on it, or you can be methodical and plan your route to get through challenges more safely.

Like any great metroidvania, this game has tons of powerups, an upgrade system to make you stronger as you progress, and tons of areas to explore. Many which have fun puzzles that reward you for putting the thought into it and/or having the right upgrade.

The music is beautifully atmospheric, letting you just vibe while exploring the locations, while also having more melodic tracks that are nice to bop your head to.

The story is interesting and very out there, but you can pay as little or as much attention as you want and still have a solid experience with the game. It's not very intrusive, with cutscenes being short and mostly text based. Completely skippable if you don't care, and entertaining enough if you decide to engage in it.

I've only had two issues with the game. One is the slight over-reliance on "enemy rushes" where they just add a whole bunch of standard enemies in a locked room and you have to defeat them all to progress. More boss fights probably could've replaced those and would've been for the better. The other issue was a glitch I had that gave me problems playing the game, but to my surprise, in contacting the developers, they actually responded and helped fix it! To have the people who worked on the game care enough to help out when contacting them is commendable and means alot to me.

Give this game a try! It's not very pricey and is a solid gameplay experience. Highly recommended!

honestly no clue how this game doesn’t have more attention. Literally such a hard hitter for the price

First of all, graphics and music-wise, it's awesome. But I think the gameplay can get kind of frustrating sometimes.

The controls are mostly okay, but when it comes to combat I find myself struggling to dodge attacks - being only able to dash towards salt, and in a errant manner because the controls are kind of prone to error if you don't pay maximum attention -. To make matters worse, sometimes the game seems to just throw enemies at you non-stop (the DLC final boss is the prime example of this), which is very annoying. Also, the i-frames on this game are a complete mess, and sometimes you can't even use items in-combat properly because if you try to do so, you get combo'd by enemies and the item doesn't work.

Nonetheless, I think this game is good. Just be prepared for overwhelming frustration every other battle. Or maybe I'm just bad, idk.

Don't torture yourself with the last boss, it's the only annoying part of a fun fast paced adventure.

Overall very good game, I haven't been able to get myself to finish it yet due to control issues late-game.

The positives:
The art is gorgeous, the ideas are phenomenal, and the game is very fun. There is a good amount of challenge, not so much that I rage quit ever (though losing over 5k salt to a single room got pretty close), or is it dark souls-level hard, but it's definitely a very hard game. The items that you get throughout the game are usually practical and well thought-out, each with their own unique use during gameplay. The platforming is very unique and the creativity is very much welcome in the current polluted landscape of metroidvanias, and when you get used to it, it makes it very fun to traverse rooms and backtrack.

The negatives:
For the start of the game, it's very difficult to get used to the controls, mainly due to how the game deals with aiming, both for the auto-aim messing with where you're actually jumping, and aiming even slightly too far down, clipping into the ground where you're standing, causing the aiming to invert. Near the middle of the game, the controls become much more reasonable, with understanding them better allowing you to be both precise and fast, but in the late game the platforming ends up becoming too difficult to make the poorly made controls manageable. Great idea for controls, but poorly executed; i found my main struggle with the game not being how the enemies are hard, because they aren't, but that I was constantly fighting the controls and dying to enemies because of the arenas rather than the enemies themselves, which is not exactly a great design philosophy. The combat is also fairly clunky, the main weapon being difficult to utilize and there's virtually no way to kill groups of enemies that they throw at you later in the game without also having to engage with physically dodging them, which is impractical in many situations given how the controls work.

Overall, fun game. I might be giving this game a negative rating if not for the extremely unique take on traversing the world and the hurdles the developers most likely had to jump simply with the concepts of how the movement, world, abilities, and basically everything should work, let alone actually coding and designing all of those. Being an independent studio trying their hand at making something new and unique with virtually no other references to base it off of is extremely difficult and I definitely don't fault them with not being able to make a perfect movement or combat system, it may not have even been feasible to create in the first place with their limitations. This is a game to play if you want a one-of-a-kind experience with the unique concepts of the game, not necessarily a game that someone who wants a perfectly polished well-crafted experience would enjoy (such as hollow knight). The game definitely has its niche of people who would also enjoy the gameplay, but that niche just doesn't fit me.

This game is amazing!!! I was a little iffy about this game as I was afraid it was going to be too similar to Celeste but it's completely different! The game does involve physics and precision but a slight bit easier than Celeste in terms of platforming. The game also involves enemies & bosses as well.. which adds onto the game experience! Highly recommend :D

Very unique Metroidvania-ish game with unique way of movement and attacking. Worth a try just for that.
Thought some bosses can make you seasick.