Constance

Constance is a bit on the short side, but I personally prefer this for once. I normally sink 90+ hours into a metroidvania to 100% it but being able to grasp the whole story without missing anything in 15 hours is a nice change of pace. The art style is really nice, being all hand drawn and the intermezzo's after collecting a tear are really well done. Same goes for the ending cutscene. I really enjoyed the soundtrack, it had quite a bit of diversity and really reminded me of the adventurous feelings. One gripe with the sound is that upon touching a spike in a parkour section the current track starts from the beginning, repeating the same part over and over if stuck on a section. The movement is fine, especially once you unlock all abilities. However some of these abilities like double jump are completely optional and can be missed quite easily due to being behind a secret wall. Hook shot does feel a bit off from time to time due to the direction of a standard and teleport hook being the direction you are currently falling into. Hitboxes are okay, only some of the cocktail challenges can be a bit frustrating due to having to do certain parkour sections twice, one to get to the cocktail and one for the cocktail itself. The whole hitless gimmick becomes obsolete on the run back due to most sections already requiring a hitless execution to reach the cocktail. The combat is also enjoyable, there isn't a whole lot of variety in enemies and the game is mainly focused around a set of bosses. Each boss do have their own fun gimmicks, making all unique. Some bosses have less than desirable attack patterns which don't give much room for actually damaging them, but they can eventually be killed by plaing the slow game. Overall I really enjoyed playing Constance, and would recommend it to anyone who'd like an easier, shorter metroidvania to get into the genre or just play a game that won't consume your whole week. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3775267776

I absolutely loved playing through Constance. Another amazing Metroidvania! I have seen some negativity regarding this game recently however I don't understand that at all... it is a good platformer and the art style and soundtrack and great! I do wish there was more elements of story, however that does not take away from my enjoyment of the game. Reusing some of the bosses as "encores" felt a bit cheap but I'm not mad about it. I will say that some of the boss fights were a little tricky (that may just be me having a skill issue though)... however not challenging to the point that I wanted to quit the game. I especially loved the final boss! I would highly recommend this game to anyone that likes 2D platformers and metroidvanias!!

TL;DR; Decent gameplay, lovely artstyle, decent story that leads to one of the most underwhelming endings I've seen in a good while. Metroidvania fan, shame I can't give this a mixed review because while I don't *really* want to give it a negative review, I can't really give a positive one either. It didn't gel with me but this might not be the case with you. As far as gameplay goes, it's not as difficult as some people complain about, platforming isn't a constant Hollow Knight buzzsaw meme. The one bit of platforming I gave up on was an optional gameplay challenge that would've earned me a 100% map completion but honestly I just couldn't be ♥♥♥♥♥♥. After 3 tries, I decided that anything else would be a better use of my time. There's a learning curve to boss fights, they're sometimes a little gimicky so you won't be killing them all the first time around, I really didn't mind this. However, the final boss was just overall too easy and pretty disappointing. You have some previous boss abilities and a "chase" sequence that felt pretty underwhelming when compared to something like Grime. (A great MV centred around art with an interesting world and visuals btw, go play it) The story is essentially based around creativity and stress (this isn't a spoiler, you knew this already), communicated pretty decently through interactive sequences, so you expect this to lead to a sort of climax but instead, it just ends abruptly. No closure, just an ending. I even checked youtube vids to see if I missed a post credits scene, I didn't. Planned (Free!) DLCs are on the way, I might check them out if they're substantive but I have no desire to start a new game. I'm not interested in speed running and I've experienced everything the game has to offer so far, as I said, wish I could give this a mixed review because while it's a decent MV overall, the final boss and ending felt like wasted potential.

FAIR WARNING, the game is kinda short (took multiple breaks and finished the game for the first time after 6 hours with 70% completion). + GOOD+ The game is cute Bosses are original and really fun. (and there are quite a few of them, despite the short game) Gameplay and controls are great, no frustration at all. Difficulty of the bosses are about the same as hollow knight without the ones from the free dlcs. Correct ammount of platforming, not overwhelming at all. Some platforming can be tricky but nothing too hard either. Great ost. -Bad- Pretty short Difficulty of the game overall is pretty easy, the boss are harder but if you've ever played a metroidvania, you probably won't get much trouble. Story: You get to see two aspects of one story. One is pretty straightforward, the other is... there i guess. I expected either a bit more or a bit less i'm not too sure about that tbh. Final opinion: It's a buy. It's up to you in the end because it may be kinda short. But the quality is clearly there, visually, and gameplaywise. I don't regret paying it full price if you're wondering. But i can understand that some would wait for a discount considering the lenght.

I wish Constance focused more on being Constance and less on chasing trends in the genre

Artistically awesome, but a slog to play. Constance is gorgeous. The art direction is beautiful, and the animations are incredibly smooth and well-done. It starts off really fun and hooks you right away. Unfortunately, it just gets boring in the middle. The progression feels totally unbalanced, and even though you visit different areas, they don't actually offer very different playstyles or mechanics. It eventually just feels flat and uninteresting. It’s a real shame because of how visually stunning it is, but I made a huge effort to push through to the end and just couldn't do it. I have zero desire to open it back up.

It's really hard to enjoy this game as much as I'd like to, it tries to reinvent the wheel with 2D metroidvania controls as if it needed any more fine tuning; it feels very janky to control Constance, the dash being tied to a paint bar is limiting, early on in the game you get an inspiration that lets you spam dash regardless if your paint bar is full or not, so what is the point of this mechanic that limits your movement in the first place? towards the mid-endgame it's near impossible to even run out of paint even when you spam paint moves, I would've preferred a paint-free dash with more paint usage on moves. the dash through ability is very janky during the platforming when you're trying to dash through the white rings, and my least favorite parts of Constance's controls are her wall-grip ability that requires more button presses than necessary and isn't that consistent to use, and how her downwards pogo has NO horizontal momentum what-so-ever completely limiting her movement which is by far the most frustrating part of having to play Constance. We have had a bunch of castlevania, metroid, mega man games and now more recently hollow knight/hollow knight silksong that have experimented over and over with controls to perfect it and a few of them achieved this marvel of satisfactory and smooth control scheme without too many button presses and end-lag, allowing more forward momentum and easy-to-execute movement tech and gimmicky platforming mechanics to be the focal centre of the gameplay loop, with essentially silksong being the culmination of all these previous games' experiments throughout the years to make one of the smoothest and best feeling metroidvania controls; little to no end-lag, unique movement tech, extremely responsive controls that are done with a simple button press, yet this game tries to do it's own unique spin on it but rather than it being responsive, it ends up feeling way worse than just a simple wall grip for example. The bosses in Constance are more so frustrating than satisfactory to fight, as the vast majority of them feel like platforming challenges rather than actual boss fights (which isn't a bad thing if it were one or two bosses), and there is a massive difficulty spike fighting bosses than there is going through the admittedly mediocre and underwhelming platforming, which to me breaks the pace of this supposedly heartwarming and cozy game that it tries to be but ultimately fails at due to how the game is structured as a whole. I'd describe myself as a very emotional person, especially when it comes to character-centric stories regarding their well-being and personal life, I cry warm tears every so often to literature, movies, and games that I enjoy, so I was very excited going into Constance learning that it's a character-driven heartfelt story; but it felt incredibly difficult and frustrating that whenever the game tries to have it's story parts right after a boss fight Constance's anxiety, depression, and stress from work felt less real and more like a caricature of a depressed person, I've gotten all the tears so far and I've yet to complete this game, I'm around 80% done with it, yet every time I had to do a mini interactive puzzle for in the story parts it felt more frustrating than rewarding or emotional, unnecessarily gameplay heavy, the people in her life feel fictional and 2-dimensional rather than accurately depicting real people and how it feels to be around them as someone who is depressed, her music teacher sounded too much like a pikmin murmurring to me for me to feel empathy for Constance, it just felt so melodramatic each time and made me feel less and less hopeful, the attempt at telling the story has been oddly paced and franky at times, comedic. Constance is a beautiful game with it's cutesy artstyle, an adorable player character, and relaxing soundtrack; yet it's endeavor to be an emotionally charged character-driven story falls completely flat on it's face due to it's odd pacing and frustratingly melodramatic people in Constance's life. The level design is mediocre and unmemorable, the NPCs aren't that interesting, the controls feel frustrating to play with, and the bosses are all too gimmicky. I usually love recommending games I find dear to me to people I know, yet this game left me confused, there isn't much point to really play this game, chances are if you've played this game then more than likely you are a metroidvania fan and you've played most of the great ones, and this one is just really mediocre for me to recommend, both story and gameplay wise, I don't really recommend it unless you're an avid fan of the genre that likes to play these type of games. edit: I just beat the game earlier, and my opinion hasn't really changed, I still find the same issues persisting even in the final boss fight, it was cool though and I enjoyed the ending, very pretty.

This is one of those indie metroidvania that lovers of the genre have to play. Controls are very responsive, Combat is easy to pick up on, but has its complexity and the platforming sections are satisfying. Art style is hand-drawn which is not necessarily a bonus point but it's very pleasant to look at. The OST is lovely and conveys feelings pretty well, and sound effects are on point. But its strength is that it touches sensitive topics about mental health in a unique way that made me fall in love with this game. Absolutely recommended