Islets

Islets proves that you don't need a massive team to create a memorable Metroidvania. Built by a single developer, it delivers a charming adventure filled with imaginative island-hopping, colorful environments, and a steady stream of creative bosses that keep exploration engaging from beginning to end. Its greatest strength is its dreamlike atmosphere. Every biome feels distinct, and reconnecting the floating islands gives the world a satisfying sense of progression. Exploration is consistently rewarding, with new abilities opening clever paths back through previously visited areas without becoming overwhelming. Boss fights are another highlight. Each encounter introduces new mechanics and enough variety to stay interesting throughout most of the journey. While the final stretch becomes a little repetitive and some combat patterns begin to blur together, it never drags enough to overshadow the experience. Knowing that Islets was developed by a single person makes its polish even more impressive. From the smooth movement to the inviting art direction and relaxing soundtrack, it feels like a passion project executed with remarkable care. Islets may not reinvent the Metroidvania formula, but it refines it with confidence. It's a heartfelt adventure that's easy to recommend to anyone looking for a shorter, beautifully crafted exploration game.

I had not been aware of this game before playing Crypt Custodian but glad is landed on my radar. Enjoyabe tight combat and traversal wonderful music and art style. Really looking forward to their next game.

Amazing

I r8 8 out of 8 👍

I enjoyed this game. It's not massive, and it definitely feels as though it could have done with a bit more tweaking in terms of the balance. For example, some of the later bosses I was a little too powerful for and my traversal abilities seemed to out-pace the world. However, I kept wanting to come back to it and discover everything the world had to offer. I think it's reasonable value for money and I think the small team of devs should be proud of what they made.

A good Metroidvania. I found its level design to be the most memorable part; it was engaging to have the smaller individual islands combine to form a progressively larger whole. There is also strong QoL with fast running speed and no tedious boss runbacks. You could describe this game with one word → simple. The environments are simple, the bosses are simple, the visuals are simple, the combat is simple, and the sound design is simple. There, however, is a degree of charm to be found in that simplicity, and it’s made more impressive coming from a solo dev for all components except music. I recommend this to anyone that enjoys Metroidvanias in any capacity. It might not do anything particularly innovative or unique, but it achieves its goals.

Fun Game that slowly expands as you unlock new islands to go to. Upgrades are random from a pool, but even if all you do is grab the gold options then you are still better off then not picking anything at all. Difficultywise, i'd say is a little more on the easier side and aside from 1 or 2 bosses, you proly arent going to struggle since i started on hard and 100%'d everything in around 10h. Movement is a little floaty which takes some getting used to, but it does allow for some decent movement speed if you get hopping. Areas are well through out and aside from enemy kill rooms, can be blasted through quite quickly with movement, slashing, and reactive puzzles to break things up. There is some revisiting areas, but those are for future upgrades, secrets or achivements. Bosses are hit or miss, for the most part you'll just be either jumping and slashing or on the ground and slashing inside of them until you need to move out of the way for an attack. There is a limited amount arrows to fire off when they are out of range, or if you dont want to deal with a monster room in front of you, these replenish at either save points or by striking enemies after an upgrade. The ground slam is by far the most broken thing you can do in this game when fight allow it, it has invincibility frames during the animation and shortly after the wave animation is complete (more then the dodge roll, but you can dodge roll immediately if you need to get out of the way). If you are inside of a large boss then every part of the wave is hitting them (albeit for 2 dmg each but you can still see the hp bar get chunked each time). Some of my boss fights devolved to spamming slamming to avoid attacks, which i also used on some fliers that have either hard to dodge attacks or have a ground slam of their own, and you can overlap them to do damage while dodging theirs (which has a fun slowdown on one of the bosses if you time it right). All in all i belive this is an older title, but a very solid one as a metroidvania. Recommend if you just want something to play over a day or 2.