Insect Adventure

The blurb says "high speed" and they aren't kidding. Your starting ability to sprint, combo enemies, and zip around is faster than some metrdoidvanias' endgame, and you just get faster and faster from there. The map is full of hidden tunnels and interesting secrets, and although I sorely missed something like screw attack to tear through enemies during the cleanup stage of the game progression is well-paced and interesting. It's been a few years since release so I hope the dev has something else cooking because a second pass at this foundation would be phenomenal.

Definitely give it a shot-- despite its unassuming title, the game has a decent amount of depth. The art style might not be for everyone, but I can say from experience that it grows on you. I've bought it for two other friends too!

Better than silksong

It’s very rough around the edges and won’t convince anyone to start playing metroidvanias. The framework follows a standard template. This involves exploring the map, defeating enemies and gaining new abilities to push forward. These abilities are known as relics, and they teach your character new traversal skills or add something new to their arsenal. Although you begin with a hammer capable of destroying some walls, you gradually acquire different weapons that may or may not be more useful. Augments are another significant mechanic. Unlike relics, which are always accessible, augments require a certain amount of slots to become active. The challenge is that you only have six vacant slots to begin with. This urges you to focus on just activating the best possible augments. This is very difficult because every augment looks extremely useful. For instance, once you activate faster dash and higher jumps, you practically won’t be able to live without them. In my opinion, traversal augments should be placed under relics because it’s very annoying when you need to switch them all the time. The game's currency is leaves. Although killing enemies is the most common method to get them, this is not always guaranteed. The problem is that they fall slowly and you only have a little time to grab them. If they reach the bottom of the screen, they're gone. What makes them even more useful is that they heal you for free. All you have to do is grab one to restore one of your lost health slots. Since enemies respawn when switching screens, you can grind for them easily. Consumables can also be dropped by enemies, although they are unimportant because you can only carry so many. Now, the art style is unique but it’s very basic and crude. Different biomes or parts of the world don’t really stand out thanks to unique features. It’s feels more like a palette swap with one or two extra, such as grass for jungle stage. Combat and animations might be the main reason why the game isn’t for you. Although the dodge or roll move is a very powerful ability, the combat isn’t satisfying. The reason is because you’re only mashing the attack button until enemies blow apart. Movement is fast and there’s no real strategy involved. Luckily, there’s no contact damage, so you can rush straight at an enemy and start hitting. The only thing you need to watch out for are attack animations. The other issue is weird overall feel that points to lack of polish. This can be noticed in how you travel across the game’s world. Your characters goes into this jittery loop animation every time you walk into a wall or a tight space. Unfortunately, this can lead to game-breaking moments. One occurred right after you get a spider web; I got pulled and clipped right through a wall. You have no other choice but to return to the most recent save. Saving, by the way, is done at special flowers scattered around the map. The game takes pride in breaking sequences. This means that your abilities allow you to reach areas that aren’t possible in a normal game. This, however, can get you stuck. I dropped down to find a great upgrade while exploring one part of the map. But I couldn't get out since I didn’t have the ability to grab platform edges. This can make you waste a lot of progress for doing what metroidvanias are all about: exploring. I like when the game rewards you with lots of achievements for simply playing the game and exploring everything it has to offer. This one has bad achievements because more than half want you to play the game in a way that’s not fun. I recommend you play it once on normal and forget that achievements even exist.

The good: - Always another great power up around the corner - Exploration feels truly free – learning that I could wall jump early on made me feel like I was breaking the game, which feels great - A nice amount of secrets that made me feel good for finding - I usually dislike/skip storylines in MVs, but this one was cute enough and kept mostly out of the way - I appreciated the story and it enforced my in-game motivations The bad: - Combat can be almost trivialized with the pogo move (although the pogo move is very fun!) - Because I mostly spammed pogo, I never got really stumped by boss fights. Partially my fault – but this had the basic effect of removing the fun gameplay of strategizing against bosses - Augments system (think HK pins) has some augments that I never removed – higher jump, pogo, dive kick, maybe some others – I think some of these should have been made into permanent upgrades - Some issues causing me to lose progress (although save points are well-placed to avoid too much loss) The very good!!!: - Character movement is FAST. This is tough at first, but since the game is all about traversal and exploration, I ended up feeling like I’d mastered the movement by the end of the game. You end up with enough movement mechanics that you can zip in any direction, move fast enough to feel just on the edge of losing control, but still be able to attack and dodge enemies. This was the best part of the game for me – play this game if you like mastering movement systems. - To emphasize a point from above: The exploration is free enough that, mixed with creative movement, I felt like I was almost constantly sequence breaking, and almost always was rewarded for doing so. The game never broke when I did this.