AWAKEN - Astral Blade

I finished this on story difficulty (see below) with Ending A after 9 hours and using a map. Initially, I wanted to gives this a lukewarm recommend, but I cannot do so anymore. The game is tedious as hell, and low enemy variety and bullet sponge bosses made combat and exploration not very fun overall very quickly. The game scratches the metroidvania itch, without it really standing out in most departments otherwise. I like the graphics and everything looks mostly polished. On the negative side is a garbage story that is trite and confusing, inane dialogue and some design decisions, which did not do it for me. Graphics and world-building also feel very inconsistent: aliens, spaceships, plants granting abilities, christmas trees, just put everything into a blender and ... well. It worked well for Nine Sols, here it feels cheap and amateurish. Worst offender for me were the accessibility settings for difficulty: I applaud that they exist, but the implementation is idiotic: the game starts out nicely on standard just to present you with real bullet sponge bosses (and boy, most have a second health bar). The third boss (three graces) was so spongey, after being prompted to turn down difficulty after dying many times, I was stuck on story difficulty because you can only put difficulty back up again at set places, which I hadn't found yet even despite playing for hours afterwards. Normal areas on story are a joke, so this baffling design decision is kind of ruining a part of the game. Why not have an option to just switch difficulty whenever you want to?! Given that combat started soon to feel repetitive, I kept the difficulty low, but the game still felt like a chore quickly. A pity.