Gunmetal Arcadia

It's a short little game with fluid controls, endearing graphics, a solid OST, sufficient lore for your retro action-platformer sort of game, multiple player characters that provide enough variety in the early game to keep things interesting, lots of items to collect and experiment with over runs, challenging but fair difficulty, and high replayability. I do think the asking price is a smidge on the high side, but the fact that the developers choose to not implement DRM in their game more than justifies it in my opinion - as a Linux user, DRM is one of the biggest challenges to getting games running. It also makes it difficult for the game to live on in case the studio fails. Highest praise for the developers in this regard. The gameplay is very similar to Zelda II, but much more refined. If you like the general idea of that game's combat, you'll love Gunmetal Arcadia.

This is from the perspective of a casual player who is a dad, so less time to play than I would like. Gunmetal Arcadia took me back to the days of NES Castlevania and the like, but with the addition that every playthrough is different and there are no save points, if you die you go back to beginning and need to start a new game. The only time the game felt unfair was towards the end where you sometimes face some spikes on the ground, those are insta kills and the first time I fell on them going back to resupply for the fight with the boss was disheartening, granted it does not take long to finish a playthrough, yet it felt as if the game did not value my time. This insta kill should be removed and replaced with a high damage or something in my opinion. Also, my face fell when I realized there are multiple heroes to choose, this is not intuitive on the selection screen nor show up or is explained in any part of the game. All in all, it was a great experience and a worth purchase, recommended.