Darxanadon

A simple little metroidvania made in Pixel Maker MV. Not a bad game. Very bland story but the game play and bosses are simple and straight forward. Pros - Good retro style music and graphics. Has a mixture of Faxandau (NES), Castlevania, and Zelda II wrapped into one package. Controls are a tad stiff but very responsive (no eaten inputs). Cons - Little to no story 1 town and characters give limited info (given the short nature of the game I can understand that) No map given it's a metroidvania but it's not a big game. However, once you complete all the objectives, it is unclear where to go and even the one and only towns folk don't inform you. I had look up a video walkthrough. You have to return to the beginning of the game once all major bosses are defeated. This COULD have been designed better. There are no cutscenes or events that reveal you must return to the start of the game to face the final boss. Overall again, not a bad game but I hope the dev looks into these fixes.

The game is very brief. Don't expect a long difficult adventure like Castlevania II Simon's Quest. I didn't complete Zelda II or Faxanadu but I think this title is shorter. Anyway, you'll love its retro fantasy atmosphere, simple progression and powerups. Recommended for a chill nostalgic afternoon remembering the old days. Some slight control issues.

At just under 2 hours (with about 15 minutes of that getting briefly lost) Darxanadon is a somwhat flawed but charming metroidvania, who's strengths primarily lie in the overall aesthetic, visual world/ boss design, and the classic thrill of finding gear in the far reaches of some poison cave, or far flung castle. The most appealing thing here, for me, was that barring a few moments where you very clearly should -not- be traversing an area without a specific upgrade (the poison cave leaching your HP if entered with no preparation comes to mind) you are able to tackle the game in a relatively free-form sequence. I found myself fighting what I -assume- was a later-game enemy relatively early on, earning what seems to be the best sword before some of the similarly powerful armour, and -any- of the magic spells. I even found a magic candle late in the game, never finding a use for it after having already struggled my way through a dark cavern I think it was intended for. There's something really cool about that. Don't go in expecting a complex combat system, or an in-depth story/ loads of hidden secrets, and If you have fond memories of NES/ 80s-era fantasy adventure PC games I think there's a good chance you'll find something to enjoy here.

If you're itching for some side-scrolling 2d action in the vein of Zelda 2 (NES) , this will be up your alley - no "pogoing" though as far as I could see. The map provides different various routes to choose from in order the progress, all of which will eventually loop back one way or another into each other. You will be mostly be picking up various equipment to help you on your journey. I think only very few of them - if any - were actually mandatory in any sense so it's likely that people will be going through the game in different ways. Though you can end up in areas which you were seemingly meant to clear much earlier, it hardly feels like you did any 'sequence breaking'. Gameplay wise the movement/controls felt snappy and tight - as good as expected for this sort of game. I can't recall any moment in the game were I felt the design of the levels was bs or anything like that. There are basically no options to speak of (3 tier adjustment for music and other sounds), controller works out of the gate but if you want remapping then you might need to use some joytokey or whatever, dunno. For me the given default controller mapping layout seemed fine; west-bound for attacking, south-bound for jumping, north-bound for inventory/selection. Windowed fullscreen works fine and you can freely adjust the window size - also like esc for fullscreen. The game took roughly 2 hours for me to beat so it's on the short end but for this type of game it felt about as long as it needed to be - kept it nice and simple as a cool throwback title. Worth the price of admission IMO considering the very affordable cost (1$).

Darxanadon was gifted to me for a Christmas event. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised. What a great little game! 97.6% recommend!

[b]This game is good[/b], im not gonna lie, I really like it, but honestly, can't recomend because of this: [list] [*][b]The ladder mechanic are clearly unfinished.[/b] [/list] I saw it came from a update after the game launch, so it's disapointing the state it stays. [list] [*][b]And the jump physics do not fit.[/b] [/list] This is a minor problem, however, just improving the jump physics will make it 200% more playable. And that's all. Both are simple [b]problems of core mechanics[/b], probably wouldnt ever pass in any cycle of playtest. Fix it, it's not an "out-of-world" thing, its kind easy to work in the solution. Plus, the fact that: the newest developer games seems great, and considering the date of last update, this one apparently got really [b]abandoned[/b] which is a shame, its not a bad game, far from it, its just 2 simple problems on the core that is ruining the experience. It hurt my heart put that thumb down. Art style, story, gameplay, map... everything is well made, nothing to complain about it, the whole proposal and work is actually good.

Simple and fun little sidescroller. The jumping is a little floaty, but in a way I found really appealing. I found the music and sound effects rather pleasant. The enemies were a bit easy with a single exception for me, but I like the way they looked, and it was fun to fight them. I also enjoyed that the protagonist changed their appearance when you got gear upgrades. The game is very short if you were to compare it to a AAA title; Took about 3-4 hours for me to finish the game, and I like to meander, so you can probably finish in half that. This game has the soul I feel is typically lacking in many modern 2D games, which was honestly very refreshing. My only gripe was how underwhelming the scary intro demon was when I finally ran into it. The game made for a fun afternoon.