Fatal Claw is a game I enjoyed for most of its runtime, which makes it especially frustrating when it starts throwing some genuinely awful design choices at the player toward the end. The core platforming and combat are generally good, the enemy variety is solid, and the map does a great job of communicating where your abilities can be used. Unfortunately, there are several sections that completely derail the experience, and most of them are concentrated in the back quarter of the game.
The biggest offender is the amount of areas with heavily reduced visibility. I understand the intent: darkness creates tension and makes the player feel vulnerable. In practice, though, it often feels cheap to get hit by an enemy or environmental hazard simply because I can't see it. It also significantly reduces any desire I have to replay the game. This isn't confined to one area either, which is why I have a problem with the mechanic. There are multiple secret areas where the player essentially has to guess their way through.
One particularly awful example is a small maze where you have to roll through the environment while enemies are affected by the darkness mechanic. Enemies can guard the exact spots you're supposed to roll toward, and your already limited vision makes this section needlessly frustrating. I hated this design and wish the darkness mechanic had stayed confined to Black Canyon.
I don't think I've ever played a game where I've enjoyed a chase sequence, and the ones here are no exception. They're incredibly rigid because of enemy placement and the way you're being pursued. There is very little room for improvisation, meaning the player essentially has to memorize the correct path. I hated these sections and think the game would be better without them.
There's also a bizarre section where you donate currency and guess a number between 01 and 99. As far as I can tell, the number is random, and it even changed when I exited and restarted the game. You're essentially wasting resources until you guess correctly. I genuinely don't understand what the intended appeal is.
The reward makes this even worse. Successfully completing the guessing game gives you a recipe for the Combinator that provides an Engrave which significantly helps against the boss directly below the area. Without it, that boss becomes considerably more annoying because of additional environmental hazards that the recipe otherwise disables. You eventually get your donation money back, but if you don't have enough currency to participate in the first place, have fun with the boss unless you look up the recipe.
The gambling aspect should either be removed or drastically reduced in cost. Even then, I don't think I'd call it fun design.
The Combinator recipe also seemed inconsistent when I tried using it elsewhere. It would summon but seemingly do nothing during several encounters, while occasionally appearing to work and deal significant damage. It felt bugged.
There are several smaller frustrations that are difficult to quantify but still add unnecessary friction. Sometimes obtaining an item puts the protagonist into a sleep animation, leaving you unable to control them immediately after closing the item description. Whenever the game asks you to choose something, the default option is also "No," which creates pointless extra inputs at nearly every interaction.
Dialogue and cutscenes are another problem for replayability. Many cutscenes can be skipped, but in-game rendered scenes cannot, and dialogue has to be advanced one text box at a time if you want to skip it. There are frequent "stop and go" moments where the narrative interrupts gameplay, and while this may be worthwhile for players invested in the story, I found it disruptive to the flow of the game.
I also encountered a bug where obtaining a marble upgrade caused the screen to darken as though the upgrade was being applied, but my marble capacity didn't actually increase. I was also unable to move afterward, forcing me to restart the game without saving.
The Rising Attack and Dive Attack skills are also comically bad. They provide almost no useful functionality and deal far too little damage to justify using them over a normal attack. Worse, a later traversal ability uses the same buttons as Rising Attack, but Rising Attack takes priority. I got hit multiple times because I was trying to use the traversal ability and instead launched myself directly into an enemy attack. These abilities either need to be removed or significantly improved because their existence actively interferes with other useful mechanics.
Then there's Kurtz.
Kurtz is, without exaggeration, one of the worst boss encounters I've ever played. You spend more time fighting the controls and the arena than the colossal boss in the background.
The intended mechanic is to collect energy, dash into three specific areas, use lightning, and damage the boss. The problem is that the boss moves every time it attacks, causing the targets to constantly shift. The bottom of the arena is covered in poison, so if you don't land on the middle platform, you'll take damage and have your position reset. You then have to hit three targets twice each before you can even properly begin the encounter.
This was an absolutely miserable experience and significantly soured the finale for me, especially because what follows is a series of gimmick sections that continue to move away from what I actually enjoyed about the game.
These sections introduce unique rules for different rooms. One makes spikes the safe places to stand, forcing you to navigate around supposedly normal floor and ceiling surfaces. Another introduces giant enemies that cannot be killed, turning the game into a stealth section. Another forces you to equip an item that reduces your health to one and then navigate a maze filled with enemies.
These mechanics feel completely foreign to the rest of Fatal Claw. I bought a Metroidvania because I wanted to explore, platform, fight enemies, and acquire abilities. These sections repeatedly pull me away from all of that, and I strongly disliked them.
Thankfully, the game does have plenty of things going for it.
The basic controls feel good, which makes the majority of the platforming and combat enjoyable. Enemy variety is decent, with new enemy types appearing in each biome. Most of the bosses are also consistently good, with the previously mentioned encounters being notable exceptions. The final boss is considerably more difficult than the rest, particularly if you haven't acquired the appropriate upgrades, but the fight itself is much more in line with what I wanted from the game.
The map is another strong point. It provides useful information about where major abilities can be used and marks locations where keys are required. I still got lost occasionally, as is inevitable in most Metroidvanias, but generally speaking, I found the progression and navigation fairly natural.
Despite all of these criticisms, I did enjoy the majority of Fatal Claw. That's what makes the bad sections so frustrating. The game clearly has a solid foundation, and when it's focused on exploration, combat, and platforming, I had a good time.
Unfortunately, you have to be willing to tolerate some of the game's absolute lowest points to experience its best. That's true of almost every game, but it's particularly frustrating here because the worst sections feel like unnecessary deviations from what Fatal Claw does well.
I finished the game but did not partake in the additional epilogue content, as I have no desire to continue playing and I don't see myself ever replaying it. I can still give it a cautious recommendation for anyone looking to expand their Metroidvania collection, but go in knowing that the game has some genuinely frustrating sections that significantly detract from an otherwise enjoyable experience.
