If this was a mobile game, i would recommend it. As a PC game, i find it lacking.
I think the demo is terrific, as it will show you exactly what the game will be. It will be that, nothing more and nothing less.
The positives:
The core mechanics are fine, enjoyable even. It is a functional twin stick shooter, it feels nice to move and shoot.
Its simplicity gives it a cozy vibe, the combination of simple but clear visuals, calming soundtrack and smooth movement, makes it a calming experience BUT
The negatives:
The game can be frustrating at times, especially the more you progress, the more frustrating and tedious it becomes, at least that was my experience.
The game is not really that well designed. It is functional as mentioned, but fails to be interesting in almost anything it does.
You have a large map and locations you can't access until you get the proper ability, classic stuff. Problem is, in a game like hollow knight, you are given a clear map and pins to put into it to mark locations. More importantly, the locations are distinct and interesting, thus learning your way around is a fun and interesting part of the process.
Here the locations are not that much different from each other, and not in interesting ways. Yes, after spending a lot of time traversing between them, you learn to tell them apart. In a well designed game though, you don't have to learn to tell apart different regions, you instantly feel the difference, via the visuals, the soundtrack, the enemies and the vibes in general. Here its all too generic. These types of games rely on exploration, and there is nothing interesting to explore or find.
That becomes a bigger problem when you unlock an ability that for some reason lets you suddenly pass 3 different types of obstacles you had found until that point. Three! Why even have them be different obstacles if i am gonna be able to suddenly pass through all of them.
And then, the frustration starts. You have to backtrack to so many locations and try to find once again spots in generic, seemingly same locations.
And on top of that, again and again, progressing somewhere goes a little bit like this:
You find a closed door, you search around you find a button to open it.
You go back to the door, go inside and find another door.
Go outside and find another button.
Come and pass through the second door, oh now you need an ability you have not yet unlocked to pass.
Return after you have this ability (probably by accident), pass through the obstacle and you guess it, another door.
And after you pass all the doors etc the reward you get will probably be just a quarter of a heart of something that you don't really need because the game is easy. So many times you get to find a button or something and not be rewarded because you also need to do other things first. This kind of pads the play time without providing anything interesting of fun. But you cannot skip this because some more important buttons are hidden the same way that unlock entrances to progress the game.
I want to emphasize that i love metroidvanias so it's not that this genre is just not for me.
I wouldn't recommend to anyone that has played similar games before, as they would find it underwhelming in comparison.
And as i am about to explain, i wouldn't recommend it to a person seeking a cozy and easygoing experience either, so there is none left.
As i said the combat it too easy. And it's true, most of the times. Because sometimes (and not once in a boss fight) the game decides to throw you a hard combat encounter out of the blue.
You are playing the game having combat encounters very often and you get in the flow and get used to that level of difficulty. But once in a while, at a random location, you suddenly get trapped in a very small room with 20 or something enemies all around you and really close to you and you have but a split second to react and manage to avoid the bullet hell that comes for you. It is something like entering a room in binding of isaac, only that you are not playing binding of isaac, a very hard game, you are playing this, which until this point was really easy, and will continue to be until you stumble upon another combat encounter like this.
The bosses were all uninteresting, slow and extremely easy, i didn't die once in any of them, nor was i close. And no i am not a hardcore gamer trying to play an easy game and complaining that is easy, if some random encounters are harder than your bosses, something is wrong. And your fights are badly designed.
In most bosses you can just stay in a specific place and only move a bit up and down, while shooting them down until they explode. Also they take too long to die, honesty i think the bosses are the most boring part of the game.
Lastly, the boost indicator is only on the ship, and amidst combat, you cannot really see it. Other chargeable abilities are on the bottom on the screen as large enough indicators, it's baffling to me that the boost is not showing there as well (You use the boost for a supershot as well).
So yeah, i can't really recommend this to anyone.
It is decent if its the developer's first game, but that's about it.
I don't think it's worth it at full price at all, and honesty, if i hadn't left it running, passing the two hours playtime while being idle, i would have refunded it.
If you played the demo and you feel like that is exactly what you are into at this time in your life, then by all means get this game at a sale. The progress is also transferred from the demo to the full game so that is nice.
