Awesome game! If you loved the original, well, you may or may not like this because it's completely different. The movement feels comparable and there are callbacks, but the similarities end there. What is similar, though, is the in-depth lore and worldbuilding which I can't wait to see expanded upon even further in future sequels, if/when those come. (Thomas Happ said he has ideas for 8 games total in the series, so I'm hoping!)

This game's best strengths are interesting exploration, abilities that feel fresh without being annoying to use, and great atmosphere and music. The exploration does some things that really set it apart which I won't spoil here. I enjoy the moment to moment combat a lot, too, though it's a bit of a rough start due to the enemies dealing a lot of damage, having tricky patterns, and your attack range being very small. This quickly becomes a very fair and enjoyable difficulty curve, however.

I feel that one of this game's biggest weaknesses are the way it handles boss fights. The boss fights are mostly easy and optional, and the few times a boss fight is required, you can't fail because it gives you a save point right in the middle of the fight, which I honestly think detracts from the satisfaction you get from beating them. It's ironic because I usually don't care about boss fights, but here I actually think this style hurt the pacing. In the end, though, that was a minor issue for me and I enjoyed the rest of the experience through and through.

I strongly recommend this if you're fine with optional boss fights, and you don't go into it expecting something like the original in any way.

I'm an old school gamer who remembers playing the original Metroid and Castlevania on my NES. I still love Metroidvanias, and I highly recommend Axiom Verge 1 & 2. I was blown away by their creativity, lore, and gameplay. While Axiom Verge 1 was a really interesting game, it had a few jagged edges in terms of gameplay that made it sometimes frustrating. AV2 smoothes out those jaggies. It was more fun for me, right from the beginning, and whenever I got stuck, I was able to figure out the next path on my own. The art style is a little different, and there is no gun arsenal like in the first one, but movement and exploration is much more refined. I highly recommend it!