Cathedral

I've played this game for almost 40 hours over the past two weeks, so I feel like I've given it a good run. That being said, I can't honestly give this game a thumbs up. As a metroidvania there are some glaring issues. In metroidvania games the player can backtrack to pickup upgrades that will help them progress. But in this game the upgrades are so minute, they are almost non-existent. Such as.... 1% increase in weapon, 1% increase in shield... for a total of 4% increase in both. I mean, come tf on. You grind for gold to buy these minute upgrades in the store, and after three upgrades at three different stores you essentially run out of upgrades to buy, and you are left with tens of thousands of gold just sitting in the bank, rotting away. What is the point? The upgrades don't help, and you need help as the game progresses because it gets INSANELY hard towards the end. It makes no sense... the game plays through at a constant level of difficulty, until you get to the 2nd to the last level (the Inner Sanctum), then the difficulty shoots up 10x. I struggled forever getting past a ceiling of spikes that kept falling and almost gave up after playing it over and over and having to do the exact same thing each time as there was no room for error, only to meet the Inner Sanctum boss and having to give up for good. I mean, it is extremely upsetting to spend 40 hours on this game only to have to give up so close to the end simply because it is impossible to get past. I know there are players that can do it, but I shouldn't have to be a master gamer to beat the 2nd to the last boss... it shouldn't be this freaking hard. And something I absolutely despise is that you have to do a bunch of rigamaro every time you die before you can actually restart the battle. The reset points are a good 30-45 seconds before the battle, and all that extra crap each time is stressful. If I'm going to play a boss 100x just to fail, I at least would like to just jump directly into the battle instead of having to break a floor, fall, open a door, recharge my health and arrows, then start the battle. And this extends to the save/warp points as well, as they are too few and far between that it takes a ridiculous amount of time to recharge yourself and save the game. All of this combined with poor controller response and an insanely repetitive soundtrack that stresses you tf out while playing... spending more than $5 on this game is a huge loss in my opinion. All that being said, if you enjoy NES era games that are just as unforgiving, then you might really like this. I played it 40 hours so it has some value, but I can't recommend it at the $15 price tag.

Gameplay wise Cathedral is fine. Comabt, movement, enemies (for the most part), and bosses are just fine. Where the game drops the ball is in its level design. And by God does it turn into an absolutely unpleasant slog. The level design problems are as follows: Big map with poor interconnection between areas (Lots of unpleasant backtracking) Over abundance of overly complex rooms (Think Castlevania clock tower sans medusa heads) Too many rooms with too many enemies Lack of check/save points later in the game (Even more backtracking if you die or want to quit) You can only change some of your movement/puzzle solving abilities at shrines (More backtracking) I finally gave up at the Desolate Mine. An area that's dark, has no map, almost pitch black, and has infinitely respawning enemies that can shoot at you trough walls and off screen. I just did not want to be in the game anymore after that.

Definitely on the more difficult side of metroidvanias (like Hollow Knight or Aeterna Noctis).As far as progression goes, the game is rather linear and sometimes a little nonsensical - you may need to trigger a cutscene to make an NPC spawn in a completely different area that opens a gate for you in order to progress. There's some minor annoyances with the camera when you're moving vertically, but other than that it plays well. The bosses are unique and challenging. A number of the upgrades you can find are inconsequential, but the ones that are significant really make a difference. The difficulty curve's a little awkward as armor upgrades in new towns are big upgrades and so the areas immediately before those upgrades are tougher than others. I really liked the music as well, though I can see people not liking the weird breakdown sections most songs have. Overall, I really enjoyed Cathedral. It's my second favorite metroidvania, behind Hollow Knight

Its not a bad game, but really needs some love from the developers. The lack of an item to warp back to a town or different statues later in the game really hurts it's potential for speed running. The difficulty curve is also a little high with enemy stats feeling unbalanced later in the game. Enemies do way too much damage and take to many hits to defeat. I want to 100% this game and achievements, but there's no way I'm playing the game a second time and not buying armor upgrades. I'm guessing in the last few area's then everything becomes a one hit kill on you, and that's just not fun.

I don't recommend this game because: 1. backtracking. I've only played about 2.5 hours and I'm already tired of back tracking. 2. Too much deadly platforming without adequate checkpoints. I like being challenged, but I don't like replaying the same parts I've already cleared to get back to where I fail. That's 80s gaming. I've been there, done that, and I'm ready for a more modern experience. 3. navigating where to go next is a chore. 4. Annoying enemies. Like they took the worst parts of Castlevania. Who apporved that? 5. I don't really see anything that sets this apart from other similar games.

I had a pretty bad time with this one overall. It doesn't commit too many egregious sins, sure the music can get annoying and the end-game feels like a disjointed add-on - but really it just doesn't do all that much particularly well. I wanted to have a good time with it but sadly it wasn't to be.

Little bit of a mixed bag. Has some excellent platforming ideas, but the developers added artificial difficulty by just spawning enemies everywhere so traversal becomes frustrating and obnoxious. You become less inclined to explore as the game goes on because it's just not worth it... Every room becomes a hellish slog. The boss fights are genuinely fun and well designed, but the common enemies are very lacklustre and annoying. The map and areas are cool, but the abilities you unlock don't really get utilized to their fullest potential. Checkpoints are SPARSE, especially towards the end game, really masochistic. I had fun I guess but I wouldn't reccomend it. Having said that I WILL probably buy the sequel getting released this year... hopefully they focus on what made cathedral good and get rid of all the bull.

This one had been sitting in my backlog for quite a while, but I'm so glad I gave it a chance. Rogue Legacy movement and combat in a Castlevania 2 style setting with cryptic hints, good puzzles, and 30 hours of content. I'd honestly put this above Blasphemous on my personal ranking list.

That's a crazy one, it feels like playing an arcade game with frantic combat. The retro inspiration is not hidden, and it's also quite challenging, the bosses had me giving my all to survive and win. The gameplay is fast and dirty, you will need to crush the enemies. The map had a nice marker system, and there were interesting ideas with progression abilities. The main progression was quite linear and not many side areas beyond some collectibles. Some people might hate a number of design decisions taken by the game. After beating the game I feel satisfied and full, will go take some rest.

I really wanted to like this game but it proved too frustrating. Mostly due to not knowing what I was supposed to do next! Which led to aimless wandering. I feel there's a really fun game here if it was more user-friendly with clear objectives and direction forward. 5/10