Environmental Station Alpha

Environmental Station Alpha is a game that I've been holding off playing for quite a while for god knows why, it has been hailed as one of the better games in its genre, but I've come off the game feeling just "ehh". It's an excellent Metroid-like with a charming, minimalistic art style, wonderful athmosphere and a fitting soundtrack, I respect how it also subverts many expectations the genre has laid bare (such as making you force your way through an area that you think you need a Varia suit upgrade for in order to progress), sadly the game is plagued by some frustrating design choices that at the end of my two playthroughs just left a bad taste in my mouth The biggest flaw with the game is it's combat which sucks, because there is so much of it, you can't heal other than at save stations and health stations (yup enemies drop no pickups and you don't have any way to heal during exploration), this choice is apparently supposed to make the few health upgrades you get feel more significant and I guess it does to an extent but the game has diminishing returns with the health upgrades (first you get +4 then +3 and so on) that it really does not make exploration feel that much more rewarding as it definitely doesn't make the combat any more fun. This choice basically renders most of the combat without incentive and it makes fighting against harder enemies all the more frustrating, this is made even worse by the fact that enemies respawn when you leave the room and come back, greaaat. Bosses are enjoyable to fight but I find that they deal too much damage to actually be tolerable. One thing I will say that this game does better than any metroidvania I've played is its grappling hook, it's incredible, who knew that just making the hook physics based would make it so much smoother when comparing it to the games in the same subgenre, the game clearly knows this from the abundance of grappling hook based platforming puzzles, it becomes the crux of this games movement, sadly most of the upgrades don't really feel all that exciting, you get your classic dash, double jump and charge shot but apart from that most of the upgrades don't really feel meaningful (hell some of them are just straight up keycards with no use in gameplay at all.). The game's map suits it's minimalistic style, but it is way too simple when compared to just how complex the game world actually is, there is a ♥♥♥♥-ton of secrets to find, so many things that you will miss. The game doesn't let you make any sorts of markings into the map to remind yourself later on (antithetical design in a metroidvania imo) you'll have to rely on your memory if you wanna come back to look for obscure secrets, and trust me you will want to come back for obscure secrets because of how extensive the post game is, it's basically a whole another game. even worse is how many secrets there are behind invisible doorways, in super metroid you always had a way to know if you could interact with a piece of terrain except for that one wall in lower norfair iykyk, well here those sorts of walls are all over the place, it made me really paranoid in the post game to have to basically jump at every single wall like I'm trying to be spiderman or something. If the base game is a metroid-like then the post game is basically a cryptic puzzle game, the game wants you to translate an entire alien language from a few clues and trusts the player to fill in the blanks for the rest of the letters, this was thrilling, I don't remember when I last picked up a physical piece of paper for a game in order to decipher a fictional set of glyphs corresponding to letters. Translating the alien language took some time and I had fun doing it but I'm not sure if it was worth it considering how the next parts send you on the most cryptic secret hunt of all time (seriously I have no idea how the first players figured this out, I certainly would never have found these locations on my own) the game wants you to find like 12 different locations on the map and type a code ON YOUR KEYBOARD MIND YOU I WAS PLAYING ON MY CONTROLLER ALL THE WAY THROUGH UNTIL THIS PART AND THEN I LEARN THAT THE ONLY WAY TO TYPE THE CODE IS TO RETURN TO KEYBOARD NO WONDER THIS GAME NEVER MADE IT TO CONSOLE RELEASES I HAD TO FIND OUT SECOND HAND THAT YOU NEEDED A KEYBOARD FOR THIS ♥♥♥♥- anyway you need to stand in a very specific spot on a very specific room for the code to work and then you need to return to the room above a cryptic ass clock room in order to spawn a ghost and then you must find a very specific room with a smiley face (no one would have this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ room in mind I swear) thats engraved in bubbles in the background in some sort of hidden underwater area (WHO EVEN REMEMBERS THIS STUFF OR REMEMBERS TO MAKE A NOTE OF THIS???) and you need to lure the ghost there in order to kill it and then you must traverse some sort of monochrome cosmic horror maze straight out of yume nikki in order to reach a secret ending. The ending was perplexing but I did not hate it, I found the general lore of the game extremely intriguing because the very generic scifi story set up takes a surprising cosmic horror turn, and I hate that there isn't a bigger fanbase around this game so I won't get to talk about the plot with others in more detail because I feel like there was so much more I missed. I feel like the post game was more trouble than it was worth, but I can totally see why some people would think this game does it better than anything else, if you're a fan of cryptic puzzles and scouring the world in search of even more cryptic solutions then this game is definitely for you. I feel like this review has come off very very harsh, but I want to assure you I did enjoy my time with this game in the end and I don't regret playing it, I'd say its one of the better torchbearers of the Metroid spirit, I feel like too many metroidvanias nowadays lean way too much into Castlevania so it was refreshing to see a game inspired this heavily by Metroid. Especially for the amount of content Environmental Station Alpha has for its price point the game is a must play for any fans of Metroid.

I enjoyed the first few hours. The pixel art is nice, if a bit -too- chunky for my taste. The music is great. I reached an area where some plant-looking monsters were shooting at me while I was trying to swing multiple times with the hookshot. I didn't have any tools that could hurt them, so I just had to try over and over. Between the plant monsters and the wonky hookshot mechanics, it took awhile, but I eventually made it across. Instead of feeling good about it, however, I just sighed. I filtered the Steam reviews to the negative ones to see what people were saying about the difficulty as the game goes on, and learned that of course it gets worse. It's a bit of a shame that I won't see the rest of the game.

One of my personal games of the year that I have played in 2026. This leans more into Metroid than 'Vania' and I prefer it for that. The boss fights are extremely fun, at first it can feel really hard but if you take a step back and learn each attack, every boss has a pattern and it becomes easier and more satisfying to get in a flow of dodging and attacking. This can apply to the game overall as well, in that it can feel quite difficult, but if you're patient it's really not that bad. Exploration is fun as well, I enjoy the 'cryptic' hidden walls or blocks, having a cap of only 30 HP is a nice little homage to NES Metroid only starting you with 30 energy (Whether that is intentional or not it's how I saw it). The story is bare but mysterious when it does present itself and the ending was a nice touch. The areas are very atmospheric and the ambience keeps you immersed. Perfectly captures the feeling of isolation and the spirit from Metroid 1 and 2. I beat the game with 99% completion, got every item, diskette and upgrade and did most of the secrets/puzzles, I will continue exploring and try to get all of the achievements. If you want to play something like Metroid 1 and 2 then this is an easy recommendation. The only flaw I can think of is that you can't pause during boss fights, but I read this was a development issue and with the save points being so close by and the boss fights not taking too long, it didn't bother me. And the soundtrack is amazing, I'm going to have to buy that.

poor boss design given the way the character moves, unreliable hookshot that will punish you if it does not attach, weird i-frames where you can get hit multiple times from different sources and where both you and a boss can die and force you to redo the fight game has not aged well, go play any other metroidvania

Absolutely fantastic game. The main game is great, the post game is challenging but still fun, and the post post game is a bit tedious but its still really fascinating.

unskippable boss fights

It is a bad game in many meanings: 1) Tons of backtracking. 2) Weird platforming. 3) Obligatory secrets that force you permanently hunt pixels. 4) Unclear where to go next. You can go through platforming part only to see that your next path is blocked by blocks you cannot pass right now. It is a bad level design, sorry. I like metroidvanias but when you have to make many circles to get what exactly you have to find it is disgusting.