Hollow Witch

I wanted to like this game, since it looks neat and is from a genre I enjoy. But it just doesn't feel good to play and has so many little quirks which are pretty frustrating. Probably the complaint that kept popping up most, the little orbs that you have to get to the objective for the level don't behave in any kind of consistent manner. Most of the time they bounce off a surface, but sometimes they'll hit something and slide along it (at least for a bit) instead. The first time it happened I thought "Oh, maybe that's what that difference surface texture indicates" but nah. It might be intended to happen there, but it happens other places that have no visual tell. The other complaint is that they seems to have put in this bit of... impact to landing from jumps. I'm not sure if it's a deliberate design choice or just due to it being an unoptimized game, or what, but you don't seem to be able to smoothly jump, land, and go right into another jump. For a precision platformer, that feels awful.

This charming (puzzle) platformer, admittedly inspired by Hollow Knight, adds a new layer of challenge to the genre with the addition of its racket-like mechanic. With a difficulty level that leans towards the likes of Celeste and Super Meat Boy and a curious storyline, this game provides a gratifying experience!

Honestly, the amount of reviews posted over a three day period that describe this game as charming, beautiful, and challenging, should have been evidence enough that this game wouldn't be that great. The biggest problem for me is the orb getting stuck somewhere, or too close to a flameball, or whatever the enemies are, for me to move it, so I have to restart the level. There are plenty of great platform games on Steam, but this isn't one of them.