Mastema: Out of Hell

It's a hard recommendation; the overall mixed rating is quite fair. Limited to the visual aspect, it's a masterpiece: even so many years after its original release, I'm still impressed by the pixel art, looking like something out of the golden years of the Amiga and Mega Drive, including a CRT effect. There is a wide variety of enemy sprites, all finely detailed and animated, and the protagonist presents subtle details like looking back or stumbling from time to time. The special attacks, some filling half of the screen, are also great to look at, and while mostly static, most bosses are fairly impressive as well. Really, I can't stop staring at all the small details, like the specific animations for damage from fire or falling into a bottomless pit, or the map screen that also anticipates you will see a nice variety of backgrounds as well, also not all in a single run as some levels have got two exits. The gameplay, however, is another story. Even if it was a passion project, I recall the developer admitting he's more of an artist than a maker of games, and I'd say it shows. Level design is quite simple, as stages are developed only horizontally, and there are several really frustrating pixel-perfect jumps when you least expect them. One of the final stages has got a small platform added in an update because it was realized the jump there was almost impossible. Biggest design oversight is not so much that the character is defenseless by default and must collect the sword attack as a power-up; it's the fact that such a sword is not present in all stages. In fact, you may find yourself going for two or three stages without finding one, forced to only avoid enemies, while some of them have hitboxes that may even force taking damage to pass them. In the end, I decided to go for an upvote with reservations thanks to the stages being short, which compensates for the frustrating elements, a level select unlocked after completing the game that allows to easily see unexplored levels without having to redo the whole game, the low price (I've seen much worse games asking much more) and last but not least an ending that may feel edgy at first but, when you think for a moment about it, makes a lot of sense.