Cathedral

The game is ok. About a 6/10 in my book. Exploration is too ambitious than rewarding, padding the overall pacing. I got this game for $5 so I'm not going to be too harsh. Overall, the game is fine. Level design is to be desired. If the maps had more upgrades, more bosses, less money grinding, and overall smaller map size this would have been an 8/10 easily. It is what it is.

The store page of this game says: "The game is designed to be played using a game controller, such as an XBox, PS or Switch controller, but works well with keyboard too. Regardless of which you choose, you will play a game with extremely tight and fine-tuned controls." I bought Cathedral thinking in playing it with keyboard and I find the above statement about this false.

Actually it's an OK game riddled with TONS of bad game design choices and weird controller issues. I give it a 6.9/10, therefore I do NOT recommend it, not because it's terrible, but because with such a low score you can find a myriad of better games to invest your time in.

This is classic NES in its mind, body, and spirit. Really f'n good, incredibly f'n fun.

This game was played in its entirety on a MacBook Air M1 8gb ram 7c gpu running MacOS Sonoma. All achievements unlocked at their appropriate times. There was a moderate movement bug encountered in the game, and it did crash on me approximately five times in my nearly 40 hours play through of the game. TLDR: An amazing retro Metroidvania with best-in-class level design, awesome chiptunes, and an extreme level of difficulty if you're going for all achievements, and only moderate difficulty if you are not. Overall, this is absolutely a positive review, and if you like what you read below, I urge you to grab this one. I'm going to start with the negatives, as there are a few, and they are substantial at times. There is a terrible movement bug with the game. It is repeatable every time, but how often it affects you will depend on how you play. The bug occurs if you change directions (left/right only) completely twice or more in a very short time period. This does NOT OCCUR with the d-pad, only the analog sticks. If you left, right, left in very quick succession, your character will be running right while you are holding full left. The reverse also occurs (running left while holding full right). I also received some crashes in the game. Around five I would estimate for my 40 hour run time. There was no warning, no sluggishness, no stuttering, it would just crash to desktop. There was virtually nothing in common when it happened, except that all five took place after my most lengthy game sessions. In all cases, I lost very little time. Not the worst thing, but I wound up keeping game save backups while I played, just in case. The game, as already mentioned, is very retro. This is mostly wielded for the game's benefit, but there are a few times when I had wished for more modern quality of life. The biggest thing that might turn people off is your basic attack. As soon as you are in control of your character, swing your weapon. You have now seen the attack you will be using for the rest of the game. Yes, like a lot of the earliest Metroidvanias (and other retro action adventures), you only have one basic attack. There is no combo, no extra flourish. You do have a basic downward facing attack as well that can pogo (a la Hollow Knight). You do get other limited weapons, and abilities, but you will be killing 99% of critters in the game with the basic attack you just saw. Still with me? Great, it's all uphill from here! (mostly) Some other retro things to be aware of are that the checkpoints are irregularly placed (but likely placed in a strategic manner by the dev), and you will sometimes have a long run to get back to where you were. Bosses mostly avoid this, but there are a few that require multiple screens and teleports to get back to again, and there is nothing on any of the screens...you could have just reversed the information or puzzle rooms with the checkpoint room and it would have been a great boon to the player. Now, for all of the positives! The game is charming, full stop. Every character has a personality, and that's quite a feat considering how few lines some characters get! The story is wonderful (I really liked the ending despite the comments I've read) and if you're not getting destroyed by the game, it's just so much fun to play. You will initially think the map is small, and the game is short. Both of these assumptions are incorrect. Not only is the map HUGE, but it is incredibly densely layered. The amount of game here is just astounding. And then there are the collectibles. They are very cleverly hidden. As in, I don't hate the dev, but I'd glare at him for at least a minute or so if I met him. They are super tricky and some of them break the very rigid rules of the game. Slash everything, twice even. Every wall, every brick, wait does that bit of background look odd to you?? Slash, Slash, Slash. What a journey it is to try and find everything in the game! Yes, I did find everything, but I'm not ashamed to admit that a lot of it I found by accident! Those sneaky bricks frequently have one-time gems in them when you find their hidden spot (and they'll remain broken so you know you've gotten them; just another great piece of QoL), but that brings us to the currency situation. It's not all roses here; in fact I think the way money works in the game is not a lot of fun at all. Frequently, the treasure rooms will be at the end of a very long series of rooms. That's rough, but the chests are randomly generated. I'd get some chests now and then with thousands in them, but around 80% of them had 200 or less. That seems worse than what most players encounter, and it did make it so that I had to grind for hours at the end of the game to finish some money achievements. But, just getting the money is not enough, you have to make it to a bank to protect it, otherwise you lose 10% (with upgrades you can lower this to 5%) of the total you are carrying. And if it was hard to get here, it's going to be even harder to get back. I tried very hard to minimize any gold loss throughout the game and was very successful doing so (I only lost around 2400 total). But, because of my low random chests, I was very short of the 50k I needed at the end of the game (it actually costs around 200k to buy enough bank upgrades just to hold the 50k). It's never fun to lose money, but it does provide some of the most intense moments of the game! Speaking of intense, the bosses are rough. The first ones are always the worst in this type of game, because you have so few weapons at your disposal. The first optional gargoyle fight (to increase your damage!) took me a LOT of deaths...because I went for it as soon as it was available. How rough are these bosses? Well, at this point, you have one jump, and you can pogo. That's it. This boss moves A LOT faster than you, and most of the time makes a beeline for you. Yes, it's doable, but you can tell that there are some difficulty cliffs in this game. Speaking of the difficulty, if you're going for 100%, it is BRUTAL. Damage Dodger requires you to complete the game without buying any new armors. You can get all of the armor augments (which do help a little bit), but you're stuck with Defense 1 the entire game. This means that most things will one-shot you as you progress unless you are very diligent in finding all of the hidden collectibles and health upgrades. Even finding everything, most things will two shot you from the half-point onwards. You do get up to 9 potions (which can heal up to 5 hearts), but with 10 hearts and most things hitting you for 8 hears, you have to double heal off every hit. And you will get hit a lot in this game! The final boss took me a few hours of attempts (my poor hands!) and it was a nail biter I can assure you. Having said that, if you don't care about the achievement, the other armors give you so much durability that I would consider the game of only average difficulty if you buy the armors (once you get over the very early game spike). Some might even consider the game too easy. I won't say too much more, except to say that the very few abilities and extra weapons you get in the game are all very well designed, and in some cases unique to this game! I wish there had been more, but what was here was excellently implemented. Well, thank you very much for reading this far. I know it was a lot. I really did enjoy my time with this one, but I would be remiss if I did not comment on its many shortcomings. Still, I'm very glad I played this and will do so again!

Es una linda fusion entre Ghost N Goblins y Metroid Prime. Lo malo, es su dificultad o que, se precisan de X item para pasar en cierto lugar. Que el diseño de los mapas es confuso, pero es normal.

Se você é fã de metroidvania, esse título não pode ficar de fora da sua lista. Certamente é um dos melhores do gênero.