Iron Diamond

Excellent. There's nothing really original but everyting is done very well, with only a hndful of minor flaws. Higly recommended.

Iron Diamond is fun Metroidvania that's on the shorter side. As other reviews point out, it is, for much of it, non-linear - many initially inaccessible areas can be accessed through any of multiple different abilities which you could acquire in different order. For example, there are at least 3 separate abilities that allow you to cross a large body of water near the starting area, but I got to the other side before finding ANY of them by taking the long way around and doing some platforming which ... would've been a lot less challenging had I more abilities at the time. One thing to keep in mind is that this game has an inverse difficulty curve, at least if you do a lot of exploration. The very second boss of the game was by far the hardest fight for me, and I finally won by the skin of my teeth, mainly because of the low health, energy pool, and damage that you could possibly have at the time of facing it. But as I got more abilities and explored farther, bosses became ... far easier. Towards the end of the game I noticed that there's actually a difficulty slider and changed it from Normal to Hard, but the last 3 bosses were still too easy - two of them I beat on first try, and the final boss on the second try. And the "upper cut" ability having invincibility frames means you can literally just keep attacking flying enemies while ignoring anything they send your way - whatever makes it through the i-frames is easily healed away.

Iron Diamond is a surprisingly solid MV for its price point and let's be honest not particularly amazing visuals (they get the job done). It starts rather slowly and being really linear and nothing special but after a point a few hours in I was really having fun. This is not a combat MV, I died 6 times throughout the entire thing. What it focuses on is exploration and it does so very well. There were many points where I both had options in which order to tackle at least some biomes and had to really think and mess around to find the progression point. Collectibles are also very valuable to get both for straight pickup rewards and for spell/armor/weapon upgrade merchants. Story is nothing special, but it's really fun from a gameplay perspective.

I'm impressed - nonlinear and very rewarding for explorers. It is very much an indie project and has a few rough edges, especially at the start. However, it only takes a small number of movement upgrades and some clever jumping to make most of the map available, letting you explore at your own direction. Lots and lots of things to find, all of which are meaningful upgrades (most commonly to damage, surprisingly). Chests you see but can't get to will appear on your map, as will the things you have collected; you also get markers you can use on top of the automatic notes, which let me focus on finding rather than remembering. Boss fights are rough edges, mostly due to unforgivingly large hitboxes. This means the game can give a negative first impression as the first two or three serious fights are without the ability to have found much in the way of powerups. This is compounded by a minor loss of the game's main currency on death (you'll easily get enough later, but it will seem like a bigger deal near the start.) Still, the game's quirks grow on you and give it a unique feeling to play, making it fun to see where you can get and keeping it from being a hassle to sweep old areas using new tools. Solid recommend, especially if it's on any sort of discount.

If you want to support a solo dev who poured four years of his free time into this passion project AND get a very well done, small gem, metroidvania, buy this game. It's only 8$ and fully worth the price. Yes, the art will drive some away (I personally find it charming), the controls can be a bit rough at times, the combat is simplistic, but that's nothing compared to the fun I've had (and will have) playing this game. Like I said, the combat feels a bit simple, but it's really not the focus of the game. The focus is mostly on exploration and in that aspect, it absolutely excels. The map is pretty decently big for (again) a solo project, you get a bunch of new abilities (Off the top of my head, probably 8-10) throughout the game, very well spaced out too. It never feels boring, there's always something new that unlocks. It's also a game that doesn't overstay its welcome, going probably from 6 to 12 hours depending on what completion percentage you're going for (for example, it took me about 12 hours to get 90% completion, but I got lost quite a few times because I forgot about a new area that I had discovered or an ability, stuff like that). So fun, short, inexpensive, what more do you need? I fully recommend everyone who's even mildly interested in this one to buy it, even if just to support a solo dev who's really nice and, even after game launch, keeps patching bugs and adding QOL elements. He listens to feedback and does his best to fix what's not fully working. And I admire that. Buy this game. Now.

loving this game its not hard but not easy. i really love the art and level design plus the soundtrack is so awesome. i highly recommend this Game

I enjoyed this a lot, especially the exploration parts. The map and upgrades were great. The boss fights ranged from fun to too easy (to be fair I was playing on casual) to dumb (stupid yeti), the story was okay, the controls took me a while to get used to and I still didn´t love them by the end, but overall I had a good time. I saw some people complain about the graphics but that didn´t bother me at all and I liked that it´s colorful. I got to 88% completion in 11.5 hours.

A low-budget but really decent Metroidvania with lots of exploration, abilities to discover, and mostly fluid movement. I'd recommend it even at full price if you're willing to tolerate the following: 1. Plain artwork with NPCs that look childish for lack of a better word. 2. A map that's paradoxically detailed and yet marred by bad UI decisions. 3. Needlessly complex controls for climbing and grappling. Took me 8-9 hours for ~98% completion with zero deaths and no guides. Hoping the solo dev makes more, learning from some experiences with this one. [h1]The Good[/h1] +8 hours or so for a casual playthrough +Multiple save slots +Controls well overall +Sound effects are good +True Metroidvania exploration (opens up as you go) +Tons of upgrades to be found, some relatively unique +Map automatically marks discovered upgrades for future reference +The aiming laser is usually helpful +Game encourages you to use movement abilities to sequence break +100% family-friendly +You can change difficulty at any time [h1]YMMV[/h1] ~Low-budget graphics, especially NPC models ~Low-budget music ~Runs my system a little hotter than most Metroidvanias ~Not incredibly difficult. The healing spell is very OP. ~Limited fast travel ~Adjusting video settings can be a chore ~Mouse cursor doesn't disappear when over game ~Not enough map markers of each color ~Enemies can shoot through walls, often from off-screen ~Camera doesn't always keep up with you ~A number of misspellings ~Some precision platforming ~No item or ability to help find missing collectibles near endgame ~There is a story and character development, but nothing new or deep ~Not much use for currency [h1]The Bad[/h1] -UI frequently blocks gameplay or even tutorial text -Climbing and grappling is unnecessarily frustrating -Map doesn't follow player location -Map screen sensitivity is way too high -Map markers don't scale with zoom -Unskippable splash screen and menu screen opening animation -A few bosses that devolved into a face-tanking strategy -Final scene felt like a softlock and then had a background art issue Played on: Win11Pro, i7-14700K, RTX4060 Ti 8GB, 32GB DDR5-6000 @ 1920x1080 Using PDP Rematch Advanced Wired Controller for Xbox Series X|S Normal difficulty

This game understands its genre better than most of the more popular Metroidvania games people flock to. I played through 15 hours of awesomeness. I enjoyed this way more than Metroid Dread or Nine Sols. Every upgrade is a pleasure to master. Every boss was fun. Every biome was beautiful. If I had any complaints it would be the simplicity of the OST but even that improved in the later game. Fantastic game. A real “hidden gem”.

The music and gameplay give me super metroid vibes right from the start. I love it. I feel like I stole this game after getting it on sale.