Axiom Verge

So I've tried some metroidvania style games outside the actual metroid-castlevania games and not many really resonated with me. 2 in particular were ori and rain world. I found them to be way to difficult to be enjoyable least for me. Rain world especially was just way to hard with the die, eat, die, eat, struggle to build up your bar to even get clearance to proceed to another extremely hard area. So I gave up both in frustration, ori was just to damn kill you over and over with hard jumps instantly. Ori was not as bad as rain world however because least it don't set you back 2 hours for dying. So coupled with all the prove yourself platformers these days like end is ni, and meatboy, I was growing a little untrusting of what people tell me is a good platformer these days. I loved a hat in time, but that's more mario, gather the star pieces platformer. Most of the really good ones I still find to be the classics for pacing themselves and not expecting really ridiculous feats. Not all of course some oldschool stuff is severly hard. But as far as metroids and the metroid style castlevanias (sotn, aria) I could not find a single new one that held the same attention from me. So I gave this one a try, and it held up to all my expectations. One thing, I was a bit of a skeptic at first with this game, it does start out a little basic with jump and shoot. But give it some time the game really hits its stride mid to end game. I have not actually beat this game yet, but got one more boss on the achievements left so I think I'm close to done. One thing this game does really well tho, it really manages to be a good mid point, inbetween challenge, satisfaction, and accomplishment. Meaning its not super easy, its puzzling, but its not frustrating. Its fun to play and explore, does some interesting things with oldschool nes style graphics I haven't seen before, and has interesting atmosphere and story. Also mixes things up a lot from what metroid did. I wouldn't say its better than metroid either just different. In metroid, well samus was a suit, you knew what to expect. Trace on the other hand is a scientist, his upgrades are not really predictable and it would be to much of a spoiler to tell you about his upgrades. Lets just say it manipulates 2d platforming in some of the ways samus did but in more trippy theoretical, less physical ways. For example he can phase shift through walls by tapping directions. Which adds a whole new dimension of platforming explortation. The game is not prove yourself, its actually quite enjoyable. Its an atmospheric, puzzling game, and beating a speed run or not dying even once could be hard. But just playing it through its more of a thinking mans game and less of a twitch platforming prove yourself with jump tricks game. That's what I love about it, so does it hold up to metroid and castlevania? I would say it does and the price on sell or not is reasonable, its already sold axiom 2 for me. So if you want a good metroidvania, that's more metroid than vania, this is a good choice.