Ebenezer and the Invisible World

This game needs work. I like the idea behind it and the artwork but man. It needs WORK. But it hasn't gotten an update in a year so I wouldn't put any money on it happening. Some animations feel frustratingly slow when you're exploring and backtracking. The dash and mirror travel in particular. Some enemies have weird hitboxes or move oddly. The dude that runs at you and slides across the floor slides way farther than you think he will. That one is something that's awkward but you can get used to. Then there's the jerk with the flail. He drags it behind him and you'd think, oh, it's seperate from his body, it's fine to walk behind him and smack him. But nope! It's counted as part of him and if you run into it it hurts you as if he hit you. Hate him. Speaking of enemies. The variety is okay but it's also weirdly used. Some areas are okay but then you get into the last area and you're still running into the lamp enemies and the mail carriers. They don't feel like they fit there at all. Shields. Dude. I don't like the shield enemies. I can kill them easy enough but it's just annoying. Especially the shock troopers because they're fast at swapping sides. Speaking of swapping sides, enemies track you way too well at times. Another weirdness is that the screen attack the healer ghost doesn't affect the spider lady. Like, at all. It just ignores her. She also has no attacks. She's literally just an awkward enviromental hazard. You can stand right next to her and she just sits there doing nothing. There's another one that's an enviromental hazard but at least the mouse wheel one is an active hazard. The map is mostly fine except for the fact there's a door you can't open because it's connected to dlc. Having to see that door every time I open the map and knowing I can't do anything about it is frustrating. Speaking of the map though: WHY the heck, did they decide to use a completely different map for the fast travel than your map?? Half the time I feel like I have to guess about which one is which. At least when Hollowknight did that they were far enough apart and had the names made it much more clear. There's one of the weapons that's whole thing is supposed to be hard hitting damage. It doesn't work. Literally, the damage boost doesn't work. It's useless until it's fixed. The mini-boss of the last area is both stupid and partially broken. It's the same guy you've fought twice already and you really don't have any reason to care about him one way or another outside of the fact he's a crappy person, I guess. He doesn't even have any dialogue for his last fight. And I said it was sorta broken and it was. I walked into the fight from the opposite side that the devs meant for and I was able to just walk up behind one of his shock troopers and beat the crap out of him. It wouldn't die until the fight started but I was able to charge my spirit off him and use the heal ghost until I was actually ready for the fight. (The save room was on the other side of the fight so I couldn't heal easily outside of wasting my limiting my healing items. Money is almost pointless. Literally. You have, like, I dunno ten items to buy outside of healing items and that's it. It's just useful for an heirloom that ups ghost damage based on money held. I really wish there was more things to buy. I have never had so many controller issues as I do in this game. I don't know it was but my controller lost connection and I had to unplug and replug it. That one could have been on me, I dunno. Grinding for level 3 items is annoying af. I don't even know how long I had to spend just to finish up spirit and health upgrades. Oh, also, there's an area in the observatory near the big boss of the area I think where there's like a background static so that every time you leave a room it buzzes and man, that's annoying. There's more things that annoyed me that I just can't remember atm. The ending was pretty bad. The boss was really easy, the air felt dead as far as sounds go, the music felt underwhelming. The end cutscene was slightly moving images with no audio outside of, again, music that felt underwhelming and you don't even see the stupid machine that was supposed to be the big issue get destroyed. Overall, it's needs patches, it needs work. It just doesn't feel good. The music is underwhelming. I want more from it because the artwork is pretty good, the lore behind all the ghosts is neat and the idea is fun but it just sorta feels like it got dropped onto steam and forgotten.

BUG一堆

I started to play this game during the holydays, unfortunately I had to interrupt momentarily, finally I finished today 25 of January. Its a very cozy M-Vania, the challenge is not too hard, if you equip and use all the tools properly. The art is beautiful and always is a pleasure to see the backgrounds from time to time, the characters are beatifully designed and I wouldnt mind to see an animated adaptation of this game (seriously) A ton of tools to equip and a surprising amount of ghosts to use to attack and enviromental progress (more on that later) Reading other comments I saw that a lot of people had problems locking themselves at one point on the map and couldnt progress, that never happened to me, no glitches or crashes. However, there are a few things that I wish where a bit different: -The game has a ton of tools to equip, but only 4 notches to equip them (if there is a way to increase them, didnt find it) the game would not hurt if it allows more tools to equip. -The ghosts offer passive skills (double jump, ballon bouncing, floating, etc) and action skills (attack with a steel ball which also works to break walls horizontally, for example) the problem is that some ghosts are not very useful and their skills could have been combined with other ghosts, (The steel ball ghost skill could be combined with the hammer wielding ghost to break all walls, horizontal and vertical) it would have been better if a ghost actually gives ebenezer their powers integrated to ebenezer moves OR make the ghost easier to select, since is not very dinamic, i would have prefered to pull the trigger button to open a select wheel and choose the ghost we need instead of cycling through the available ghosts side to side with the right thumb stick. and finally the music, not very remarkable, really. If you are on PC just use your music. All and all, a neat game with a few problems, I still recomend it.

Despite it's unassuming presentation and the jank I encountered while playing, this game is a surprisingly competent metroidvania, and in my opinion, a pretty interesting storyline. A solid christmas-themed game overall.

This game is....not great but like not awful either. Just kinda dull. The idea is cool but it lacks enemy variety and has slight issues with controls. If you try to turn and use an ability it will sometimes ignore the ability press or shoot in the wrong direction. I can't really recommend it

Nettes Grafikdesign, aber spielerisch irgendwie langweilig und unübersichtlich (wo es weitergeht). Kämpfe funktionieren so semi: wenn man bei der rudimentären Ausweichfunktion Gegner berührt, wird man auch verletzt. Echt jetzt?

Pour ceux qui aimer les metroidvania avec un design dessin animé à l'ancienne, ce jeu est pour vous. Bonne DA et bonne ambiance, gameplay facile de prise en main, un scénario autour d'un conte de Noël assez connu revisité, c'est un jeu très agréable que je recommande.

A great and wacky premise, with amazing art. While the gameplay is quite simple, I think it's a short but sweet game that's great for the Christmas season. The biggest criticism I have are the bugs. They range from mildly annoying ( such as sometimes putting you into a stun state after jumping, leading to a 2 second delay before you can attack ) to infuriating ( such as soft locks that prevent you from equipping items ) . Ultimately, I think it's definitely worth a play through. It's charm outweighs it's problems and with a length of 8-10 hours, it doesn't overstay it's welcome.

It's the Christmas Carol game you always wanted!.... What? You never wanted a Christmas Carol video game? Ebenezer and the Invisible World is a weird game. Before I get into the weird stuff, let's discuss the game while ignoring that. Ebenezer and the Invisible World is a metroidvania game based around obtaining Spirit companions. It's very similar in concept (gamplay wise) to Ender Lilies. While the core game works and is enjoyable, it has a lot of minor nuances that lead to the game feeling bad and running less than optimally. First, this game seems to be VERY proud of it's 2D animation. The animation is nice, but it's pretty anoying to get stopped and have your momentum snuffed out because the game wants to show off its animations. Really, if this game had flow, it would be far more enjoyable. As it is, just about everything you do is going to cause you to halt momentarily, which makes the game feel a bit jittery. Second, the game lacks any real Juice. That is to say, there's nothing in the sound design or visual design that makes gameplay elements feel really good. Nothing feels really bad, but when there are so many fantastic games out their, you can't stand out without some juice. Now, onto the weird stuff. This game is a direct sequel to A Christmas Carol, a film about an old curmudgeonly man who's greed has led him to close himself off from the world. Over Christmas Eve, he learns to open his heart to others, and learns that Christmas is about being together with family. Then, he lives a long and fruitful remainder of his life. Except, this game says that actually, after having that runin with spirits, he's now a medium that is able to see spirits around him all the time, and interact with them. A spirit visits him and asks his help to change the mind of a young man who plans to massacre the entire lower class. You meet the three spirits of the original story who give you the spirits of children to help you on your journey, along with the rest of the dead people who decide to help you out. Plus, for some reason, Ebenezer Scrooge has somehow learned how to perform martial arts with his cane so he can defend people. Like, the game itself isn't bad, but the whole premise of the game is absolutely insane, and it's a really weird story. This game would have been better if it were NOT related to A Chritmas Carol, because everything I don't like about the story has to do with how it's tied to a story that does NOT mesh with this one. On top of that, the game isn't particularly good, even if it isn't bad either. I completed it, and you can definitely have a good time with it, but I would recommend playing Ender Lilies instead, as that game has the same premise, but has near perfect execution.

This is definitely a 'first game'. It's rough, unpolished, and does not like telling you anything. But with that said, I absolutely adore this game. What madman thought to make a Metroidvania game based on 'A Christmas Carol'? Such a rich world is born from a relatively simple story (in terms of world-building, they barely explain the ghosts in the book). It's so interesting and I never felt let down by this idea. [spoiler]It's also got some of my all-time favourite executions of classic Metroidvania powers. The double jump and the glide are so satisfying and creative, the mirror teleport is fantastic, and the dash, while remarkably useless (yeah it's bad), looks so cool that I kept doing it.[/spoiler] The story, while simple, is still good, and characters are cool, but I'm beating around the bush here. Look at it! It's BEAUTIFUL! The art and designs are some of the best I've ever seen, I cannot get enough of it. That alone makes it worth a playthrough. Conclusion: A decent, if rough, game carried by an incredible concept and gorgeous visuals. Highly recommend.