Legends of the Universe - Cosmic Bounty

Not as good as the first installment "Legends of the Universe - Starcore" but still a steal for it's price. I don't like that the game spoon feeds you everything. The first game didn't do that at least. Not a bad game though and I would still recommend it.

This is a low budget Metroidvania that I found weirdly… fun. There’s a **lot** of room for improvement, but it definitely nailed some core components. The good - player upgrades. It very slowly and gradually upgrades your movement and combat abilities, almost imperceptibly, and by the end you are cruising through rooms. It did a great job of rewarding exploration in that way. I also liked the tile sets. Nice color and texture variety. Combat felt serviceable, and map design was good as well. But on the map… there are 12 “areas” like a typical Metroid game. But for some reason there’s no way to see an overview of them all, or know how anything actually connects. It’s very frustrating, because many times you have to go through multiple areas to find the next key upgrade. The level design- really basic. Most rooms are basically flat with a few enemies. There’s only a handful of times where platforming is a consideration, which is a missed opportunity. I hit a bad bug at the end where I needed to use a keycard to open a final door. The keycard somehow disappeared from my inventory. Luckily, restarting the game managed to open the door. For a discount, I think this was a fine 3 hour Metroidvania experience. It feels like a “first project”, but I can definitely see potential in the dev. I’m gonna hop into their newest release now, so hoping to see some improvement there.