Lumione

In short, veteran players will likely greatly enjoy the challenges of the platforming in Lumione. Edit for clarity: This game is nothing like Ori or Hollow Knight besides the aesthetic. It is not a metroidvania. It is completely linear. The challenges are completely platforming-based. The gameplay is much more akin to Celeste, but the level design is very unique and more difficult than most of Celeste, C-Sides included. In-depth review below: Lumione is a very challenging puzzle-focused platforming game. You play as Glimmer, a Fairy of the deep sea. Quickly you are introduced to your main mechanic: A short flight, recovering whenever you touch ground or a bubble. The controls are somewhat floaty, and momentum felt very weird to me at first, but as the difficulty ramped up I started finding that the floaty controls and momentum allowed for very interesting design and challenges in each screen. What do I mean when I say challenging? Lumione will introduce a new mechanic, give you a screen or two to make sure you understand what it's doing, then it throws down the gauntlet. Screens quickly turn into daunting series of jumps with no breaks or safety until you reach the next screen, and it's all-or-nothing. There are only a few individually precise jumps, but it's stringing them together with consistency that provides the difficulty in this game. What do I mean when I say puzzle-focused? At first, the levels are very straight forward. You fly from the start of the screen to the end of the screen by hopping on a few platforms. Towards the end of Chapter 1 you will likely trial a few different paths before you get the correct route to the end, and as you get deeper, levels become just as difficult to "solve" the path as it is to execute the platforming--and there have been many screens that I am certain I solved the hard way because I couldn't figure out a better path. There is a lot of room for multiple unique solutions in each room, and it's up to the player to find--and execute--these solutions. This all said, there are certainly some flaws. The controls took a bit of time to feel intuitive, and sometimes I'm still not sure about the momentum. Overall, I feel the game could have had a balancing pass of forgiveness for the player--dying while clinging to the wall because the spikes on top of the platform stuck out too much, or a laser just barely clipping my cute little horn when I feel like it shouldn't count. If you're a bit new to platforming games, this might be a bit daunting, but with enough patience anyone can chase the light. For experienced players, this game won't wait before putting you into some tough spots, and the level design really starts to shine by Chapter 2 and on. I highly recommend this to anyone that can be patient with the fact that they will probably die a lot on the same screens.

Finally, a Celeste that won’t make you trans! Ori finally had his way with Madeline, and this is the baby in all it’s glory! Calling this Ori-esque is an understatement… but that’s not a bad thing in my mind. Lumione very clearly wears its genre inspirations on its sleeves, mostly the Ori games and Celeste. It’s breathtakingly beautiful but diabolically hard. If you love punishing platformers, this one is for you. Personally I’ve been successfully enduring failures in life repeatedly without making notable progress for 35 years now and I’m still alive, so naturally I was attracted to this game. As a super fan of precision platformers, I found Lumione to be great. It’s quite hard. I had to watch walkthrough videos a few times. It is very enjoyable, but again pretty difficult but once you get the hang of the mechanics it is extremely fun. Music is peaceful but do know that like me, you’ll probably be breaking a few controllers going through this one… The Ori references are obvious, but Lumione is much more wit and puzzle timing effect than battle mechanics. Unlike Ori the game isn't a Metroidvania. It's an ultra-hard linear puzzle platformer, and is quite hard but like Celeste it’s screen to screen. If you beat a screen and then die in the next, you respawn right there and can retry immediately. The “gravity” is low and the wall hang is generous, if limited at all. It’s a nice little twist on the formula. Really like it when platformers give you time to think, rather than forcing the player to die repeatedly to learn the stage. Many might say it’s a bit too much inspired by the Ori and Celeste games but even then it’s a great tough platformer for a low price. If you’re a fan of the genre it’s definitely worth a buy. 7/10

Was about to go into a more in-depth critique but then i noticed that the store page gif's seem to be sped up footage giving a more fluent, fast paced game feel than what the actual game delivers and that just seems wrong to me.

It feels like it wants to be celeste, and it just isnt. You will get your dash/fly caught on weird level geometry and sometimes you can just kinda stand on spikes. Its can be very unclear when something is a platform or when its forground/background. There is no momentum, making the moving platforms very boring and movement overall dull. Level design is uninspired. You can't move very fast, and the controls are not very smooth. They took some inspiration from celeste, but maybe they should have taken a bit more.

This is a precision platforming game, without the precision. 1. The wall graphics often have tiny imperfections and bumps. The developers thought it would be cool to model this into the game's physics, and as a result, your character will unpredictably stutter and slip when trying to execute precise jumps, making you fail to jump when you pressed the button. 2. Spike hitboxes are inconsistent. Sometimes they kill you because your toenail scraped against the side of them, and other times you can stand on the very edge of a spiky platform with the spikes sticking through you. I've even seen cases where I landed directly on the spikes, but was somehow able to jump straight off of them without dying. 3. You can fly into walls, glitch through them, get stuck inside, and die. 4. There will be laser beams that will be blocked by terrain, but the top of the terrain has no hitbox, so the laser beam passes right through what seems to be solid terrain. 5. There will often be walls and floors that are ever so slightly sloped, while the moving platforms will travel perfectly straight. As a result, you'll be riding the platform, and get clipped by the tiniest tip of the spikes, and die, without having a clear frame of reference for where you're supposed to stand to avoid this. The music and graphics are absolutely beautiful, but hand-drawn art like this just does not work with precision platforming. It's too difficult to judge where the hitboxes are.

Edited after finishing the game. Firstly, there are lot of comparisons to games like Ori and Celeste in these review. This game has a hand painted artstyle and is a 2-D platformer, but it isn't a copy. It explores unique themes and had some pretty neat movement that is distinct from them. Overall, I really enjoyed this game, though it was frustrating at times. For those who have played other precision platformers, you will likely also enjoy this game. For those that saw the graphics and music, this is game is very difficult. I would put it bordering the "almost unfair" difficult category, which is the root cause of frustration. According to steam achievements, the game has a 7% completion rate at time of review. For what its worth. I think this is because of the difficulty. The soundtrack is phenomenal, and the graphics are beautiful. Each of the zones is distinct in their appearance. In terms of "art", this game is 10/10. Gameplay wise, the central movement mechanic is the ability to "fly". This is an omnidirection controlled dash, whereas a game like Celeste as a single directional dash that has no in air control, Lumione leverages the ability to move without gravity for a short time. I really enjoyed this play and thought it was unique from other platformers I've played. Additionally, every chapter has a set of unique platforming mechanics, introduced one at a time then combined together towards the end. However, there are usually 1 or 2 simpler screens before the game absolutely lays down the gauntlet with challenging screen one after another. I'd say it could use a more gradual increase in difficulty. I also found the first chapter to be much more difficult. Often times, the same screen is used once the next ability is achieved and it leaves you marvel at the level design put in, especially noticable in chapter 3. I thought every one of these mechanics was used in pretty cool ways, most of which are pretty unique to the game with exception of the last one which clearly takes inspiration from Celeste. The level design alone makes many screen a puzzle to be solved in addition to requiring precision movements, which added to my enjoyment. In terms of the afforementioned frustrations: Due to the nature of the fly ability and hand painted graphics (instead of hard pixelated), much of the controls feel extremely floaty. This is fine, but it can sometimes be difficult to tell where certain hazards begin and end. The devs put an insance effort into making the hitboxes actually align with the painted geometry and its actually detrimental in some cases. Spikes stick out ever so slightly and it will make some jumps that seen very doable nearly impossible. There is a point in chapter 3 that requires timing movement to particles that are shot at you. This was really well handled by having them only starting shooting once you start moving. A similar strategy was NOT implemented for some moving bits early in the game, and it absolutely should have been. The hitboxes were my main concern, and it was easy to push past them, but for new players to this genre it might ruin your experience. The dialogue is good, but you can tell that much of it was translated. It seemed way to formal for the English I am used to in most games. Not a big deal, barely noticable, but it made some of the quotes interesting. One final note was some weirdness with momentum and in-air speed. It seemed that on my DualShock4 that you moved faster in the air with the D-Pad as oppose to analogue stick. I'm not sure if its a weird bug or my controller, but it made some jumps WAY more precise than they should have been. Just an fyi. For those with potential disabilities or even just poor reaction times, there is no assist mode in this game (as there is with Celeste). I think this could be a very good addition to the game, especially considering the topics in the story. Everyone has their own mountain to climb, difficulty is going to different for everyone. Final thoughts: Lumione is a great platformer with great art style, music, and level design. There were some hitbox issues, but those could be easily solved and didn't prevent me from finishing the game. Would recommend to fans of this genre, but would warn new players that this game is quite difficult, probably on par with Celeste B and C sides and Farewell.

I'll be speedrunning this game for SGDQ 2022, and after over 120 hours with it I feel like it deserves a thumbs up. But with a little asterisk.* * is because the criticisms that I'm reading in the negative reviews are largely valid. For a precision platformer, this game has made some odd choices. In particular players will likely find frustration in the lovingly handcrafted, artisanal hitboxes. What does that mean in practical terms? It means that the cool organic-looking wall that has a 92 degree incline probably has a matching 92 degree hitbox. It means that the little divot in the ledge that makes it look worn and natural is also a spot where Glimmer will slide off that ledge and die in a pit of spikes. It has the same energy of the old 2D Worms games where a bunch of explosions generates bizarre terrain, and you have to deal with there being 3 pixels that you just can't stand on but they are nonetheless still there interacting with the physics engine. See that tiny gap between hand-drawn spikes? Yep you can probably stand there. On your first playthrough this property of the game won't be anywhere near as big of a deal as the *intentional* difficulty that the game has, particularly in the later chapters. On subsequent playthroughs, chasing after speedrun achievements and whatnot, you might get agitated as you realize that sometimes you just slide off walls and die in a way that seems completely random and inconsistent. A lot of people rightly call this out as a crappy or unfair feeling experience. But way beyond that, with even more experience and replay, this game really starts to shine again. You start understanding what specific sets of pixels should be avoided, you get enough mastery over Glimmer to make extremely precise movements, and you really unlock potential for some high-skill-ceiling gameplay. This game is chocked full of tricks that are only achievable through extremely precise movement and attention to detail. A lot of the rooms seem like they have been designed to have incredibly fluid routes through them, but only if you can execute near-perfectly. I can't say if this level of depth is intentional or not, but I can say for certain that it is there, and incredibly rewarding to discover. There are also plenty of things about this game that nearly everyone praises. The art and music really are beautifully done. But don't let the Ori aesthetic fool you, this game plays a lot more like (and intentionally borrows heavily from) Celeste. Many sections of this game are probably harder than the C-sides, so don't pick this title up expecting to breeze through it. I am certainly not saying that you have to push the game to world record tier competitiveness to get enjoyment out of it, but I do want to put it out there that *if* you choose to do so, you'll find that the depth and challenge only increase as the frustration and sense of unfairness decrease.

Looks cool, graphics and audio are great ,and is fun at times. ONLY PLAY IF YOU ARE A MEGA ADVANCED GAMER. NOT FOR CASUAL PLAYING. This game is unbearably hard for no reason. Hopefully gets updates to balance game play (needs it a lot) and to fix a load of bugs (such as glitching through blocks, bad hit boxes etc.) again great game, could tell people worked hard which is why this is a positive review but also a WARNING. With balancing, the game could be much better, but as is right now, only buy if you want to go through the most stressful platforming of your life. I haven't even gotten past chapter 2 and it is already getting to difficult to call this game fun now. UPDATE: Updated game and it corrupted my save. i still have respect for the people who made this game but I'm in mental pain right now because I'm not going though the pain and horror that is this game to get back to chapter 3.

[h1]3[/h1] Far too many bugs, the "precision" in precision platformer is ruined by almost every spike wall having a hitbox larger than it appears, leading to a majority of deaths being unfair; holding a wall just below the top & being killed by the top spikes, etc

This game is labeled as "Precision Platformer", yet the precisions in the game are quite lacking. If you are coming from Celeste like I do, you might really want to download the demo and try it out first. Also this is nothing like Ori. This is not metroidvania, there are no enemies. However it feels very inspired by Celeste. First of all, please standardize the hitbox of platforms and spikes. I know the aesthetic of round edges looks epic but there is a reason why platforms in platformers are blocky. For example in the first chapter, there are serveral corners where you cannot ledge yourself onto for a wall jump despite the wall appears straight. Secondly there are uneven walls in many precision sections. I don't know if this is intended or for aesthetic as the surfaces of the wall that is indented will mess with your wall jump and grab, especially in a timed section. The decision of making the character floaty with HUGE inertia, and jump that last longer if you press the button longer isn't exactly my taste. The floatiness makes it harder to anticipate your landing location especially with moving platforms - and they are already hard to latch on because they are typically small with round corners and uneven surface. There is a very significant boost when you release the dash button when you are dashing upward, but only upward, and combining with the floaty character feels kind of counter precision. You can get used to it but it'll definitely take some time. Despite that it is challenging and each rooms isn't as straight forward. I never feel boring playing it. For the price I would still recommend this. Also please don't make split path one-way. Players who like to collect all the stars will get progress blocked just because they chose the "correct" path and not the challenge room.