This is gonna be a long review. I will be dividing it in 7 catagories. I won't talk about the story, but I will go into detail about the gameplay and (without spoiling) the bosses. The conclusion serves as a tldr.
[h2]The gameplay's appeal[/h2]
The game's controls takes heavy inspiration from celeste, though they still have their own identity. It even has momentum depending on what abilities you choose to have. You would expect the level design to take inspiration from celeste too, but it doesn't. Celeste's level design has you retrying a single difficult room over and over again until you finally overcome it, however, this game's challenge doesn't come from the level design itself, but the process of mastering it and getting that S rank, which the players have to actually earn instead of it just being given away, so if you're unwilling to speedrun the game, this may not be your cup of tea. I think this game's levels are easy enough to be accessible to those that are bad at platformers. Story isn't skippable though, but you can just mash through them; it's not a big deal.
[h2]Poor Communication?[/h2]
I didn't know that the game had abilities until after I finished half of the second world, despite me having unlocked 5 or so. It doesn't help that abilities in this game are called "Memories", which doesn't imply them being an ability. Weirdly enough, hints and general info are collectibles in this game? You won't be earning hints or certain game info if you don't go out of your way to collect them, and it can sometimes be really useful info, though they're not all a must know. They're not difficult to find and it's not like the game requires you to know anything about them, but they don't make for interesting rewards imo, and it's weird I didn't know about abilities until later into the game. There are also red and yellow block gimmicks, that I didn't understand until after I beat the game and was trying to speedrun the whole game in under 30 minutes. That one might be my fault though, because the game does explain it in the hub world.
[h2]Abilities[/h2]
I didn't use all of the abilities. I only used those those that make the player go fast, and they've been pretty fun. Time required for S ranks don't require any abilities, so using abilities could lead to you being about 5 to 10(?) seconds faster than required for an S rank (If you try hard enough, maybe you'll be even 20 seconds faster). What confuses me about the abilities is the fact you can change them mid-stage? These abilities can get REALLY broken, but at least there is the trade off of only being able to equip 3 of them. At least, that's what you would think. There is nothing stopping you from equiping speed abilities, then changing to one of your broken abilities to get through a section, and then re-equipping the speed abilities again. If this is on purpose, I think the game would've benefited from a quick ability preset menu instead of going to the pause menu every time. It's not fun having to re-enter the pause menu for that; that's why I question whether or not this was intentnional.
[h2]Bosses[/h2]
They're fine. The first one is kinda the best, because they allow you to beat it pretty quickly, and you can make the choice to damage boost to get extra damage, fitting for a game about speedrunning. One of the bosses, however, kinda sucks. You have to wait until their attack is done before you can attack them again, and you can only get one attack in- TRUST ME I TRIED TO GET MORE. That boss has become my sleep paralysis demon after speedrunning the stage they're in (I'm being very dramatic).
[h2]Rewards[/h2]
The game doesn't reward you insanely well. Only the keys lead to worthwhile rewards. There are still rewards for S ranking every stage and getting every collectible, though I can imagine most players not caring.
[h2]Controls[/h2]
This game's controls are great. Almost everything the description of the game describes about its movement is true-"synergistic" being a very good word to describe it. The level desgins compliment this too. I'm not good at describing a game's controls. All I can tell you is that it's precise and fun to master.
[h2]Conclusion[/h2]
I can tell the dev was very passionate about making this game and I enjoyed 100%ing it. For 4€, I would say that this is great deal, because you get to have a game that takes about an hour or more to beat and you get to extend your playtime 10 fold if you want to 100% it, and you might want to do that because speedrunning this game is really fun. If you're into speedrunning 2D platformers, I would say you should get this game. Don't expect this to be as big as other indie games. This is the dev's first game and they've been developing this game mostly by themselves as far as I know, so control your expectations.
