That's it??

[Chocos Ramabotti]

Ok so uh I pretty much praised the game in the past but uh I have to admit it was pretty... simplistic? Too ordinary?

I love the artstyle and it has oldschool vibes, it's short and uncomplicated but at the same time it's very unceremonial in what it does all the time, very simple level transistions, an extremely unsatisfying ending and the levels feel more and more uninspiried towards the later half, too much of it follows the same formula, the character you play can do nothing really special, just the basic plattforming repertoire you learn while you progress through the game: Sliding, Dashing, Double Jump *yawn*

But above all I think the balancing wasn't really good, if I consider that I played on a mode labeled as"HARDCORE" I wonder what's so special about it. What is named hardcore here would be not even an "easy mode" in old Mega Drive games.
The game has health and heal upgrades and it seems like if you collect all of them you have it easier than it should be which makes me question why even bother with "upgrades" in an old school trimmed game which is completely linear anyway? If you miss one trinket you can't go back and it's pretty nagging knowing that, because achievments are tied to this.
So it doesn't feel totally oldschool.
While the bosses are generally simple, with enough health you can allow yourself a lot of mistakes, way too many towards the later half I first tried bosses simply because I healed over their attacks and was spamming the attack button. Not really engaging.

Level themes share a common mood and gloomy atmosphere, but overall they are as random as the rest of the game, it doesn't really feel like natural progression and the final boss at the end was "just there"
I really felt a "That's it??" at the end.

I know there is New Game+ and I played in it for the first three levels, it became a bit harder, but enemies more spongy, not sure if I really take more damage, I suppose it's not so easy to damage boost boost bosses on new game+ but on the other side I wished I had played under these circumstances from begin with, it was possible to be honest, for some reason you can start the game at "New Game+1" but I thought this wouldn't be very wise and the game is somehow balanced around the upgrades you would've found during your first playthrough, turns out "New Game+" isn't really what I understand under the term. It's basically just the same game in harder with more nifty enemy placements (ocassionally) so I wonder why it isn't just another difficulty, i'm not feeling that much motivated now that I already know the whole game, maybe in the future but overall the game doesn't really offer anything remarkable.

On the bright side I like that the game featured a classic life system, makes that little exploration which the game has to offer feel more rewarding. The easy difficulty dismisses it but i can't imagine how easy this game must on anything under hardcore. So not even sure if this makes sense considering the audience of this, but I suppose nowadays compromisses are imminent and unavoidable.

So i'm feeling conflicted should I give this a thumbs up out of good will? The product seems overall to save for me to justify it, I like the uncomplicated fun it can prodivde, you can quickly turn it on and have fun on the first stages before it becomes too easy. At least plattforming retains some excitement by having instant death traps (yes to me this is a pro) on the other side there are enough Mega Drive games in my collection who can do exactly the same and stay challenging, not overstay their welcome in lenght, not any unnecessary upgrades systems and a healing system which is a bit too close to the typical souls formula.

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So yeah I give this a thumbs up, simply because the devs decided to put in lifes into the game, just to send a sign that such a decision is appreciated and should be rewarded. In my opinion It's something that more games could offer these days again, the game is overall well crafted around this design decisions it makes you think about your playstyle and although this game is even on hardcore too easy, it's at least tense.

EDIT: whoops that was supposed to be a review, aww never mind. :P

[Runa]

I agree. I admire your assessment