Faunamorph

[h1]Stay away from this game. Aside from being dull (as far as I've seen) it is also a buggy mess.[/h1] ..Needs more time in the oven. Before installing I got 4 achievements (one of which was the completionist one). I'm told this has been fixed. After 15 minutes of playing my map completely bugged out, It was showing just 3 rooms, then it showed the entire map all whited out, then a mix of different glitched squares. On rare occasion when I jumped, it would be like I hit my head on an invisible block. The gameplay itself it is hard to say so early definitively but it has the same miserable 5 second music loop on repeat and the areas might as well be AI generated thus far. While I haven't played for long, I'm seeing a lot of bugs that are hindering my progess and no real redeeming qualities inspiring me to push through the jankyness of it.

I cannot recommend this game in its current state as it's very buggy with some bad design choices. First, the game doesn't save. Getting as far as I did already felt like a chore so I really wouldn't want to do it all again. There's some extra saves at the start that seem to have unlocked achievements like 100% completion when I loaded the game. Second, as you unlock abilities like double jump, morph ball, or glide they each have a DNA cost and especially early game you can't activate more than one or two abilities at once. These leads to very annoying situations where you may have to use one ability, open the menu and disable it to enable another, use that ability, then go back in to switch back to the initial ability. There's also weird choices like the rhino run breaking blocks but it doesn't hurt enemies. Double jump kills a good bit of horizontal momentum. The octopus tentacle ability is really slow and requires holding a button to tear down obstacles (and it's so slow that even if it works on enemies you wouldn't use for that purpose). Combat is extremely basic with limited enemy variety. The worst are some turrets that shield themselves and require you to keep a short distance and just spam your ranged attack until they die. These turrets only attack if you get close enough for them to shield themselves so if you're shooting them they can't do anything to you. Enemies also drop 2-3 health pickups so you're never in any real danger, not that the other enemies are more complex than clawing once or twice. There's also some small issues like picking up items has just a little too long of a pause before you can press a button to move on. I want to give the benefit of the doubt to developers and see the best in what they've done but this game, particularly in its current state, is a hot mess. Avoid it.

It takes a while to get ur first ability but once ya do it's time to explore. I wish there was a bit of a voice narrative but it's story is told thru logs. Graphically it looks solid. No brown drab here. The controls are solid as well. I used a controller as recommended. I can sense the swappin' of abilities may get a bit annoyin' as time goes on. It ill depend on the situation. Early on ur limited to one. It ya can stomach the shortcomings then give it a go if not then there's plenty more out there. I'd givve it a middle thumb. Gameplay Impressions: https://youtu.be/TM3X7xxw_ak

I've played about an hour, and this is going into the backlog because I'm busy with a lot of life stuff at the moment - but I've played enough to leave a review. And my honest opinion after my gameplay thus far is that at its core, it's a somewhat casual-ish Metroidvania with a focus more on exploration than combat. Yeah, you are going to fight some things - but the game feels far more about the use of various animal parts to progress through the interconnecting zones of the world. Navigation is a bit... Problematic at times. The map appears to show exits/doors that don't necessarily align with reality - which can lead to a super frustrating bit of back and forth as you try to figure out where you're going. You've got DNA strands for things you can read that never go away, so you might find yourself going back to a location because you feel like you've missed something. There's a bit of uncertainty when you reach an obstacle at times, as you aren't always sure what animal skill you really need in order to progress. It's a minor thing, because once you figure it out it's pretty easy. Armadillo roll, Kangaroo Jump, Bird wings, Octopus arms, Rhino run, and many other animal traits await you. It does take some time before you reach the proper DNA strand level that allows you to have multiple skills at one time in a way that's efficient. That, I think, is going to be something that's a bit frustrating for most players. But I found it to be not too bad as I usually felt pretty decent with just 2 skills on at a time. Combat is pretty simple. You've got a ranged attack, or a bear claw kind've slash. Enemies aren't really a major threat so far and just feel like they're there to help me restore my health when I've made a handful of mistakes. Graphically the game looks good, with plenty of detail in the various zones. I really enjoyed the different visual effects for the animal skills. Music feels like its a collection of way to small loops, which was a minor distraction. I've seen it mentioned a few times that there's a bug about achievements getting unlocked incorrectly which might be fixed now. There's also an odd bug that I have a hard time replicating to understand why it is happening, but occasionally when jumping it's like you're hitting a ceiling even though you aren't. It's never been a huge deal, but I noticed it enough to point it out. Either way, if you like Metroidvania style games I do think you'll have a good chance of enjoying this. I have so far.

It has some potential but has quite a few glaring flaws. A bug where you jump and it acts like you hit a ceiling. Repetitive short soundtracks. And the need to change your loadout repeatedly on a single room.

The concept seems cool, but it is too buggy to recommend. It felt like only every third jump actually worked, most of the time the the jump would just cut off. Platformers need good, consistent movement. All the fancy animal hybrid abilities don't matter if the basics are good. I might have kept it and waited for this to be fixed, but it isn't marked as early access.