Recommended with some reservations. If you're a completionist, even more highly recommended, but with deeper reservations, oddly enough.
The base gameplay and structure flows quite well. The best part of this game is the semi-Metroidvania-like progression of abilities combined with the stack of challenges that pushes you to see each level from many different perspectives and have parts of the architecture take on completely different roles depending on what you're trying to do. This even applies to navigating the peaceful hub area, where the obtainable motion abilities that give you advantages and unlocks in the normal levels are also what you use to reach new areas of the hub with new level portals. The hidden items in the levels, and the use of the Synthesizer, add interwoven background notes of flavor. Some of the challenges have very stressful mechanics, such as resources constantly draining or very difficult time limits, so be prepared to back off and try a different level if you get too frustrated—which is arguably a flaw in the way the challenges for each level are only available in a linear fashion, because occasionally you might want to be able to skip a bad one.
The visual aesthetic is fun and colorful, and the music is decent module music, though it can get repetitive at times.
The main place where I think this game falls flat (though not as flat as the head monk's trumpet) is the boss design. Many of the boss battles get too repetitive. For most of them, this isn't too big a deal, because once you pick up the strategy, it's just a matter of good execution a few times in a row. However, the most climactic boss has major problems. It's easy to reach the boss while having just barely enough power to maybe be able to beat it at the cost of a long, boring multi-phase slog, and that's where I most recently gave up on the game—not because of the slog itself, but because of a mechanic which may have been put in later to try to prevent it! As far as I can tell, it is one of the most grotesquely player-hostile mechanics: a hidden death timer. You can get through phase after phase plinking away, and then you suddenly die out of nowhere. So my advice would be to run away the first time you encounter this (it'll be pretty apparent which boss this is once it gets going), and get as many upgrades as you possibly can before seriously attempting it at all. It'll still take ages, but… well, hopefully at least… um…
Anyway, there's also a much more amusing secret boss which I half-remember encountering a long time ago, but which I don't think I've gotten to on my most recent save yet. I'll leave that one for you to find.
In terms of framing, the interface is not amazingly smooth but is generally workable. However, if you're using a controller, be aware that that will limit your ability to use shortcuts for spell selection, which can make some aspects more annoying. The non-full-screen mode refuses to have a border, so you can't easily manipulate the window. Oh, and I'm pretty sure the "gem loss on damage" toggle only refers to the visual effects, not the game mechanic, which is unusual and potentially confusing. None of these were a big deal for me, though.
Don't forget to push the online scorecard button if you like that sort of thing!
Overall worth it, and the issues it does have should be easier to handle with foresight.
