Absence of Light

Early impressions - really enjoying it! Controls feel great, solid map, nice paralaxing environment and some moody ambient music that is different in each biome. To the Dev - can you please add a completion tracker? Either a % indicator in each area and overall %, or a x/4 secrets found kind of thing? Will update when I finish!

This is really nice twin shooter METROIDVANIA with MAP. If ya liked RETURNAL you'll enjoy this It's mellow but challenging I was surprised how good this was

A fun twin stick shooter with good music, great art, and a dash of Hollow Knight thrown in for good measure. I dug the weapon switching / upgrading system, which added some good variety to encounters. Enjoyable combat, and the bosses have some great bullet patterns. One to check out!

This game's got a lot going for it with an excellent and diverse soundtrack and characters that stand out in the memory easily. In terms of game play design it stands solidly as an introduction to the Twinstick shooter style genre. While still providing challenge, it does a very solid job of having a skill curve that you can learn and get better alongside.

Cool and fast shooting with very small map and light metroidvania elements. The main gameplay is very similar to twin-shooters. Although playing with a keyboard and mouse is very decent, it’s much more comfortable to use a gamepad because it lets you move with the left stick and aim with the right. Shooting is fast, so you don’t have to worry about precision that much. The other important ability is focus. Since enemy, and especially boss attack patterns tend to lean towards bullet-hell, you need to use focus to slow down your movement to maneuver between bullets. Focus only affects your speed, which is pretty fast normally, and does not slow down anything. Also, your attack pattern becomes more scattered from the usual precise shots. Weapons can be upgraded up to three levels by collecting upgrade icons from destroyed enemies or caches. Later you can upgrade it even higher by finding a special item. Each level significantly increases the firing rate. However, each hit causes you to lose one weapon level. It seems more irritating than it is, because it doesn't take many upgrade icons to get a weapon over the basic first level. Aside from your main weapon, you can find four more, which may be better or worse based on your preferences. A few light metroidvania elements are incorporated. The first indication is that you require particular equipment to overcome certain obstacles. Although you begin at the central hub, which might suggest some freedom, you cannot just go anywhere you want. The most useful piece of equipment is located in the first stage. It's called a reflector, and it redirects enemy shots back to where they came from. This is really strong, particularly if you look for an upgrade that allows you to activate it more quickly. There are four major stages in which the goal is to find a sigil. Stages aren't particularly large, but it's still a good idea to find a map. This is offered by an NPC located somewhere on the stage, and you must pay with the game's currency. It is dropped by enemies, but you can also locate treasure caches containing a lot of money. Unless you save money in the back, you lose some of it with each death. Generally, money should not be an issue because there's more than enough.

The game looks very zoomed in which irks me, despite having a lot of space to operate in on the screen. I think it's because of the large geometry surrounding you. I didn't like that after a boss fight, if you want to go in with the best chance you need to farm mobs for XP to max your weapons again. This system only worked for me during the exploration portion of the game because it is otherwise tedious. With that caveat, I enjoyed the boss fights more than I did the exploration. I was not really immersed in the games world (In part due to the basic graphics style). The map system: You find the vendor for an area and purchase the map. This reveals an entire areas map and marks the location of any secret items that you haven't collected yet. The game has a death penalty where you lose gold. But you can bank the gold so it isn't lost on death. I don't see the point in this.. All it does is create a risk of needing to farm later to buy things, and forces you to decide whether you can be bothered going and banking your money all the time or not. I don't see this as a fun system in any way. It's otherwise a solid little bullet-hell microvania that looks to take 2-2.5 hours (I got bored and frustrated and put it down at what I think was the area with the final boss).

First Thoughts after only the First Play through: First Boss is a newby challenge, then The other bosses are awesome! Some were to easy to beat if you had the right amount of power-ups, and the others were pretty Challenging, gonna try for the other trophies!

A fun and challenging bullet hell with awesome music and graphics. Plays surprisingly smooth. Definitely recommended for Steam deck users.

The last few bosses in this game are absolutely bonkers! And then your reward for beating it is an extra stage that is way beyond my skill level. Proud of myself for beating this one. Absolutely brutal schmup.

Shoot-em-ups are not my go to game. But I've been looking for a time killer that doesn't pull me in too much. Tried this one and I'm really enjoying it. It's engaging, challenging and satisfying! The killer soundtrack really adds to the vibe too!