Recent reviews by Vain

game good

that one guy who got this game for free, rated the game negative for "not having good cutscenes" can go take a hike. It's a $3 game that brings back the nostalgia of 3D platformers from 20 years ago (that, may I remind you, were sold for $60, pre-inflation).

The soundtrack is a banger, the gameplay is banger, and it just feels kinda happy to play. His critiques are valid - some maps feel a little empty at times, but once I finish a level the only critique I could level at it is that they are small. Compact, tight levels. It doesn't take forever to get from one end of the map to the other, but the whole map is interesting.

If there were way more money behind this developer to actually produce a "complete" game with more story cutscenes, that'd be great. But this game feels more like a passion project that didn't want to be distracted by things that aren't central to its purpose, and I think that the game benefits from a "no-fat" design style. It is exactly what it wants to be, and no more.

If you liked the 3D platformers of yore, or if you're just looking for a fun hour of chill platforming a mini-collectathon, buy this game.

Do you like metroidvanias (especially those leaning more heavily towards metroid)? Play this game. nuff said

Extra info:
I like the way the story is going so far. I'm not done, but I know when I am finished I'm gonna forget to write a review so I'm doing it now. Game takes some classic tropes of cloning/AI vs human/human vs ecosystem from games like metroid (duh), axiom verge, and environmental station alpha.

Enjoyable combat. Use the accessibility features for infinite healing on the parkour levels if you don't wanna have a bad time. IMO there could have been damage paused entirely on these rooms like Lone Fungus does. But it's quick enough to go into settings and turn on infinite sparkblood for the room.

Some things aren't laid out plainly and you kind of have to experiment/read the abilities to understand what they do completely. The swim ability can turn momentum from a 'heavy drop' into freely redirectable motion. It takes a while to naturally discover this, even though I did read the ability as I got it. Maybe I'm just dumb, but I thought it was referring to how you can hold dash to maintain some swim-dash speed.

Load times for fast travels are significantly shorter than other games like this, which is good because you're gonna be retreading a lot. This is a metroidvania, after all. Many save rooms are right next to the travel rooms, so the backtracking in this game feels about as fair as one could hope for.

I'm usually not this early to play metroidvanias on release so there isn't a complete wiki that I'm aware of yet, but there definitely should be. Some funky tech like infinite bomb jumping that you kinda have to look up for yourself online or get *really* lucky experimenting with abilities.

To remove map pins, select the same color pin as the one you want to remove, hover over the pin you want to remove, and then press the "add pin" button. It'll remove the old one. This wasn't clear to me initially.

Update:

Finished the game. God i wish there was like 5 more minutes in the ending sequence, or maybe some different music. Anything but going straight from "regular tense fight theme" to end credits. The singular sin of this game. Still totally worth the playthrough, very fun.

A lot of thematic ideas opened up in the game that are never directly explored, which... isn't really a bad thing. AI, capitalism, yada yada, but it all feels very reasonable, and I feel like I'm allowed to disagree with the main character here. In a more "woke" kinda game, you might be made to feel like a piece of *&%# if you even think an opposing thought to the main narrative, but here it's just presented as the ideas of a girl on her journey, and it's up to you to feel however you do. Is she good and right? Well-intentioned but naive? I do agree with her, but I really appreciate how she exists as a character in this game.

The thinking man's Tetris.

It's easy to understand why people compare every 2d action-platformer to hollow knight, as it's the best metroidvania of the last decade, but this isn't really a comparable game formula. It feels like if metroid (actual metroid, not in the hollow-knight-esque sense) played out in a stage-based format with an overworld. You can revisit areas, and you might not complete 100% of an area at a time (i.e. have to revisit with upgraded movement or after you git gud), but the overworld mechanic makes retreading old areas MUCH faster than most metroidvanias, or Zelda games for that matter. However, because the levels are designed with this in mind, THE LEVELS FEEL MUCH DIFFERENT FROM THE GAMES YOU WILL SEE THIS GAME COMPARED TO. I feel this isn't always a good thing, but it plays to the personality of the game.

There's a not-insignificant difficulty curve with the combat around the tower of combat, whereas everything before you can kind of just whack them until they die, areas at and after this feel like actually... kind of challenging? It's like if Mantis Lords came right after 2 hours of holding right and mashing x. At the moment, this gives the overall difficulty feeling of the game similar to Metroid, but ONLY in terms of combat.

The exploration is (so far) much easier than most metroidvanias, and in terms of difficulty, I'd say it's closer to the difficulty of Zelda puzzles (apples to oranges, but I mean that it's not difficult). It's easy, but still interesting/not thoughtless.

There are checkpoints up the butt in this game, but it doesn't feel patronizing, it just streamlines the game to exactly what the developers want it to be: a bit of exploration, a bunch of mild combat to spice up the areas, and some major combat checks to make sure you're actually playing and not just mashing. If you fail one room, there's no dark souls runback; you're put back one room max, with no penalty for dying (on normal, anyways, not sure about harder modes).

Art style hits the mark exactly for what it wants to be. The 3D overworld especially pops, and doesn't overstay its welcome (it takes like 10 seconds to get from one area to another in the overworld, unless you just wanna chill there and fly around).

Movement feels funky just because I expect a game like this to feel like Hollow Knight in its combat, and it does not. Jump height lower (I think) and horizontal movement has some startup acceleration, with max horizontal speed faster than hollow knight. So you're more grounded, but levels and combat abilities are designed to match that. Still getting used to it.

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That's the breakdown of how I perceive the game, but my opinion of the game: if it looks a little interesting, get it. I don't know why this game has Mixed reviews atm, it should have Very Positive IMO. Granted, I still haven't beaten the game, but so far, the initial impression that the art and trailer gave me is EXACTLY what I've gotten out of the game.

If you HAVEN'T already played all the games that everyone is comparing this too in the comments and you just think the pixel art looks pretty, maybe start with the games it's being compared to first. Hollow Knight, Metroid (the whole dang series, but specifically Super Metroid), a smattering of Zelda games.
That said, if you ARE familiar with 2D-platformer types and this looks interesting, go for it. Game good so far. Maybe I'll update this when I finish because I will be playing more of it.

Surprisingly interesting writing. ngl I was skipping through 60% of the dialogue until near the end after the comics. Captain DUI is my hero.

What I really mean by the writing being good is that it manages to do a decent job a writing a silly game in a legitimately interesting sci-fi world. It does both and sacrifices on neither end. The sci-fi bits just keep comin too. You think "oh, it's THIS kind of a zombie world" and then it says sike, it was actually a scifi story in a fantasy story, and then it says sike it was a scifi story in a fantasy story in a scifi story, but it all builds naturally. Pretty short but well worth the time.

Never have I had such a completely positive experience with a game, didn't waste my time and it still manages to get philosophical on you. I feel as though I look at the world differently now. My life feels less empty, and the being within feels larger.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that this game told me I had a nice co-