I have never felt more satisfied and fulfilled beating a game. The story is good, the gameplay is punishing but rewarding, and the boss fights are fantastic.

The game is built entirely around parrying and counter attacking. Luckily the game is fairly forgiving in the timing. On one hand, yes a perfect parry prevents all damage and gives you much more openings; but at the same time even an imperfect parry only does "internal damage" health that can be regenerated if you get enough time to rest and let it refill. The game definitely still doesn't hold your hand and even basic enemies will often kill you if you do not respect them. If I were to be reductive and give a comparison for this game, it's Hollow Knight meets Sekiro, but it is so much more than just that. There is a deep meaningful story here that I feel is worth experiencing.

The final boss though is like running head first into a difficulty brick wall. Most the game was challenging but easy to overcome and learn the patterns fairly shortly. The final boss though... she is multiple stages of constant quick attacks. Learning her patterns took me hours, with later stages of the fight taking so long to get to that it took forever to get used to the new attacks. She alone drove my playtime up another 10 hours or so, a full 1/4th of my playtime. I've fought plenty of hard bosses over the years but she is definitely up in the top 5 for me. As much as it almost made me want to give up, beating her made the ending that much more satisfying.

The game does have a "story" difficulty where you can adjust damage. So if the idea of a brutally difficult action game turns you off but you still are interested in a well designed metroidvania where you play a cat person on a quest for revenge it might still be worth giving a look. Now I don't know how much easier story mode makes the game as I've not played on it yet so I make the suggestion with that caveat in mind. I'll probably do story mode for getting the alternate ending when I go back to achievement hunt and hopefully the lower difficulty will save me some time on the final boss cause I certainly don't want to deal with her for 10 hours again.

10/10 game, end credits song is a banger.

If there are two things I've learned over the years about time loop stories, across all mediums; it is that they are tragic and they are the deepest form of horror one can experience. How many loops would it take before you go mad? How long before the people around you and their repeated samey responses and dialog starts to just feel like NPCs? Even those closest to you, those you love, your friends and family will start to not feel like real people as they do the same thing. Over. And over. And over. And. Over.

This game leans fully into the horror of being stuck. The mystery of why and the maddening journey trying to figure out how to escape. The terror of seeing everything go horribly wrong and being stuck with that memory. Sure you loop back, you reset everything, but who do you turn to to process that feeling? How do you talk about the emotions caused by an event that only you remember happening? How does it not drive you to the brink of sanity?

This game is an emotional journey from start to finish. I took my sweet time with it and probably made it take longer than it should have to get through to the end. The writing may not be to the taste of some but for those willing to engage with it and meet it on its level, it will stick with you. I won't go so far as to say the game will change you or anything but it will have an impact. Normally I try to write my reviews immediately after finishing a game, for this one I had to take a week to process the emotions it left me with. I smiled, I laughed, I cried... I cried a lot.

In this humble gal's opinion the characters are all charming and likable. Even being stuck in the loop of just a two day's journey through what is ostensibly the "final dungeon" of your normal RPG you get lots of peeks into the character's personalities. Their likes, dislikes, fears, insecurities, hopes, and dreams. The game will endear you to its world and characters if you let it. And you should. You should let them into your heart. That way when things go wrong, and they will go wrong in your search for answers, the knife twist will hurt that much more.

The gameplay isn't a lot to write home about. The systems are purposely simple, but elegant in their execution. It's a Rock, Paper, Scissors magic system quite literally and there won't be a lot of depth of strategy or party builds. Not that there is no depth or strategy at all, just that it isn't the focus here. You gotta look at it similar to the RPGs of old that it clearly takes inspiration from. You'll maybe throw up some simple buffs, you'll use your strongest attack, and you'll heal when needed. There's a couple of mechanics encouraging chaining of combos and at least one major fight requires paying extra attention to enemy abilities and timing but like I said the combat isn't the focus. More than anything else the gameplay is about piecing together the story and solving the narrative puzzles.

I wish I could say more on the game but I fear spoiling too much if I do. Play this game, it is well worth the time and emotional investment. And maybe avoid looking too much into fanart and stuff until you finish the game. There's some later reveals you might accidentally spoil yourself on. It won't hurt the narrative getting spoiled but it takes some of the intrigue out of the mystery. Don't make the same mistake I did!