Iron Diamond

敵人跟機關沒兩樣只會來回走動

Overall I enjoyed the game very much. I did not like the grappling mechanic and never got the hang of it.

Great game and a true metroidvania.

Mixed but positive. Fun for a couple bucks and a couple hours. Good variety of environments but the art itself has a very amateurish quality that feels cheap (which it is!). Similarly the music is immediately forgettable. Most of the character designs felt somewhat crude and lacking emotion. Comparing to the recent Minishoot Adventures, I think it's possible to get some mileage out of a simplified artistic style but Iron Diamond struggled to do so. The story is slight but fine. It's nothing complicated albeit the world of Kindara doesn't have a quality of realness. More of a playground feeling. There's a lot jammed into the game, which is a pro and a con. The map felt cluttered with markers and it was hard to keep track of where I still needed to go look for something. There are loads of items to collect, but perhaps too many - they started to not feel valuable when you collect 20, 30 or more damage buffs. I did enjoy using unique items to get special upgrades, that was a fun touch. Similarly the tremendous number of traversal abilities provided variety (double jump/break, down pogo/down break, wall climb, hang, super jump, fire/ice/lightning shot, etc), but I felt there were too many - some were used for only one or two puzzles. I would have preferred fewer abilities and more interesting use of them. The power jump was often difficult to control which resulted in running into spikes fairly frequently, and similarly the grappling hook felt very fiddly (it can only attach to certain hooks) compared to Ori's bash ability (which felt like the inspiration). All in all the traversal parts felt like a grab bag and not very curated. The game world is almost totally open, which is laudable, but I really found myself wanting more direction. It was easy to miss foundational feeling movements like the dash and the down strike and I spent time just running around the map in circles figuring out where I was supposed to go. In terms of bosses and difficulty, almost uniformly easy on the normal setting. The only bosses that gave me trouble were the first fight with the ape, the yeti, and the iron general - everyone else was a one shot. The yeti was the only boss I felt was mechanically flawed as he relied on the grappling mechanic, had a hard to locate hit box, and was frequently able to knock the player to the floor and keep them there. The balance felt off: you get a bunch of health upgrades and energy upgrades (although I think I missed an energy upgrade) and you can heal 2-3 health bars which each energy bar. Healing is instant, and your energy replenishes. This created a scenario where the best course of action was usually to face tank the boss as much as possible and then heal completely. The combo-strike system (particularly when you unlock faster attacks) allows you to rack up huge damage by button mashing, which felt cheap. The downstrike can also be performed in rapid succession by mashing the button. Because healing and melee were so strong, I never wanted to use energy for any of the ranged attacks - I think it would have worked better if healing and ranged used separate resources like the arrows in Islets. The platforming was okay, there were a couple jams where I really hated the spike traps (spikes generally reset your progress to the beginning of the platforming area). The punishment for failure was easy though with the healing system so that's nice. I didn't feel like the platforming was notably challenging, easier than say Guacamelee 1 (which this game reminded me of somewhat with its platforming and traversal unlocks). Played great on SteamDeck.

Very fun experience overall, worth checking out if you enjoy metroidvanias.

This game is so odd and janky. The controls are a bit slippery and it's hard to figure out where to go or what to do. The boss I found (and finally beat) took like literally over 50 tries. This one needs a bit more polish...

Incredible game, exemplary of the metroidvania genre. Fantastic exploration, tons of upgrades, a solid challenge for platforming sections, and fun boss fights. Story is pretty good too. Audio is fantastic and matches the vibe of each area perfectly. Combat is fun, controls are responsive and tight. No complaints to note, just a really enjoyable time. I would rank this on par with Hollow Knight - it's that good (albeit a bit shorter).

Great fun, and well paced, Iron Diamond does not overstay its welcome. Easy to recommend.

It was a fun game. It took an hour or two to get up to speed but it was fun once all of the movement abilities were unlocked.

Extremely surprised with how fun this game is. Progression speed is great, combat is ok, but movement is a ton of fun and fluid. You could claim that the game doesn't seem as polished as most games out there, but there's this kitchie art style to the characters where at first I was like "this is strange", but now I love coming across the next area of enemies and seeing the quarks. This game is relatively inexpensive compared to most comparable games and it was that fact alone that made me apprehensive to grab this game initially, but I'm so happy I decided to. Action Platformer/Metroidvania Genre enjoyers will love this game.