Kingdom Shell

Surprisingly well executed

I was having fun with this game, everything was leading to a positive, solid 7.5/10, review. The game doesn't do anything new and for the first half does everything well; nice pixel graphics, simple gameplay, nice progression, story that is there but doesn't waste your time with long and neverending dialogues... Of course, some flaws that can be annoying: very few save spots (and you HAVE TO save MANUALLY! If you forget to save, bye bye progress!), the fact that you lose coins when you die, repetitive enemies... but nothing that really detracts from the overall enjoyment. What really started to crack for me it's when you get to a castle (with obvious Castlevania references, to the point there's a hidden piece of meat inside a breakable wall and there's an achievement for that) and the difficulty simply ramps up. If you have played the first Castlevania, you know what to expect; precise platforming with neverending waves of incoming enemies. Then you beat the castle (boss included). Then the game throws you immeditately to another boss (that you fight on platforms, because why not). After that mini boss rush, you have to enter a tower with a moving screen (upwards) with LOTS of traps and you basically can't mess up. From a solid platform oriented metroidvania, it suddenly becomes a precision platform game. And remember those two bosses you've fought previously? Yeah, absolutely NO PRIZE from them. You know the thrill of beating a boss and getting a new upgrade/item that will help you in the next section, will help you explore old places from the map? Nope, that ain't happening. In short, it's yet another sad case of an indie metroidvania that simply tries too much. It tries to take mechanics from many different games and instead of becoming its own thing, it's just a Frankenstein monster.

not a bad little metroidvania game. I enjoyed it, good story, could use a few a tweaks but overall not a bad game.

An amusing metroidvania. Difficulty can spike at times, and sometimes you may need to walk away for a bit, but it pulls you back! Had to get a map to find the last 2 rooms I was missing for 100% map completion

很规矩的一个银河城，虽然没有什么特别突出的亮点，但没有什么明显的缺点，玩下来的流程很舒服，全成就条件也很宽松，全收集就是了，非要说什么问题的话就是能力锁有点少了，只有二段跳和空中冲刺

This is the most 7/10 game I've ever played. It is solid by most metrics. I love 100% metroidvanias, and this game provided a lot to search for. The pixel art is nice and the soundtrack is atmospheric. But where the game really falls flat is the combat. Not a single boss fight or regular enemy was engaging. Some of them took multiple tries to learn their move set, but I never needed to actually change up my strategy to succeed. Don't buy this game for the combat. But if you don't mind button mashing, the game has a lot to offer everywhere else. Especially when on sale.

前期还行，后面玩的恶心，游戏时长全靠没存档点的超长即死的跳跳乐撑着

> Solid with a smattering of spectacular ## Why - Detailed pixel art which improves in creativity as the game progresses - Some very unique/mechanically stimulating boss fights - Plenty of secrets, some creatively hidden/hinted at ## Why Not - Instakill lava - Only one type of map marker - Story is kinda just there ## Impressions Kingdom Shell starts off as bog standard as a Metroidvania can be, albeit with very detailed pixel art. You have some basic melee and ranged enemies to beat up, ability gates to bounce off and secrets to discover. This persists even after the first boss, where you go from detailed but bland mountains to detailed but (somewhat) bland undermountain caves. Then, just as you're about to relieve a gnome king of his treasure, your floating exposition buddy shows up. And you jump on his cloud for a shoot 'em up section & boss fight. That's where Kingdom Shell really started growing on me, and its a pity it happens over an hour into the game because there's a chance some players bounce off before that and miss a really well made game. There definitely are a lot of stretches which scream 'standard Metroidvania', but it also never dips below 'solid' and the high points are great. I especially enjoyed the Queen fight for its presentation and sharp but fair increase in moveset complexity compared to earlier bosses. It's a bit unfortunate that her fight is toward the end of the game, and that in general the 'quality' of the experience scales up dramatically as you near and pass the halfway point. There's potentially a bit too much time at the start spent on relatively mundane environments and entirely mundane enemies; a bit more early creativity with enemies and environments could've lead to more players sticking around to get to the really interesting stuff. Having said that; I've seen the release version of the starting area and the dev definitely made huge improvements versus what it looked like then, so good on them for putting in what was probably a fair amount of work to address issues. There are a few variations on the standard formula as well. For one, your only source of healing is a consumable Nectar which doesn't refill at save points (at least until you unlock it through exploration) and dying causes you to drop a fixed percentage of your currency on respawn, no corpse runs. Secrets are handled in some interesting ways too, with a mix of standard illusory walls, hidden ladders _just_ poking out from ceilings and cryptic rumours delivered by random NPCs who demand large sums of money up front. Some things could stand to be a bit more 'standard Metroidvania', like multiple map pins so you're not struggling to remember _why_ you couldn't progress past that dead end. Overall though Kingdom Shell is a polished, enjoyable experience which builds up steam over its runtime to a satisfying conclusion. Well worth fishing out of the sea of competent Metroidvanias we're surrounded by these days.

Good metroidvania with decent length . Story is OK , Bosses are very good , areas are nice . Game starts easy and end hard but not silksong hard.It´s very fair not legendary , but i had lots of fun

Gra nie zachwyca. Artstyle całkiem ładny ale przez powolne poruszanie i ataki niektórych przeciwników robi się nieczytelnie. Elementy platformowe jak i bossowie w porządku. Muzyka bardzo dobra, chyba najmocniejsza cześć tytułu. Pomimo wszystko grę zmęczyłem do końca. Czułem, że ukryte skarby i miejsca trzeba znaleźć, nie do końca opcjonalnie. Pod koniec bieganie po uzupełnienie nektaru do zająca też irytowało. Do połowy było spoko ale potem wszystko opadło. Może lepiej sięgnąć do oryginalnej Castlevani...