Fun adventure/metroidvania with frustrating difficulty spikes that make this short game feel a lot longer. On the other hand, cool outfit system fixes a lot of issues.
Because the intro doesn't give you much to chew on, the story is told as you play the game. Basically, you are a girl who falls asleep and is drawn into darkness by an evil dark thing that slithers into her room.
Nothing will be explained to you directly because there are no text boxes or voices in this game. Thank goodness you have a diary that does that for you. If you want to know what's going on around you, you should read it every time the book icon appears. You can maybe ignore it and continue playing the game, but there is only so much you can pick up just by looking at the screen.
The font used in the game's diary and letters could be better. Some letters look similar, making it difficult to read, especially for those unfamiliar with the language. If you read for longer periods, it can strain your eyes.
The gameplay is enjoyable. The controls are simple, and no sophisticated movements are required. Aside from basic movement, the most often utilized buttons are jump and attack.
A flashlight is your weapon of choice. Every time you press the button, it fires a beam of light. It doesn't cover the full screen, so you'll have to get closer to the enemy, but it's really useful. The flashlight gains experience points and grows more powerful by throwing light on opponents and killing them. Defeated foes also drop lightdrops, the game's money.
Forest animals tainted by the darkness stand in your way. You will encounter frogs spitting at you, squirrels tossing nuts, and wasps stinging you. However, it appears that the game does not treat every living thing equally. Smaller creatures, such as frogs and bats, just explode in a dark cloud, whereas squirrels can be cleansed of the darkness and returned to their friendly form.
Bosses are usually larger creatures. Because the game is short, there aren't many of them, but there is a difficulty spike here that is fairly surprising given how easily the common enemies can be wiped out. While bosses revealing different attacks during a battle is nothing new, in this game they transform into bullet hell fights that will kill even the most skilled players. But, as I sought to avoid every bullet, I discovered that success isn't dependent on any strategy. Smashing the button as fast as I could was enough. The reward for defeating a boss is an ability that allows you to go to the next zone.
The world is small. There are five different zones that change the landscape slightly, although the overall aesthetic remains dark and cave-like throughout the game. Except for a few locations where an ability is required, all zones follow the same generic pattern of jumping on switches and looking for the newly opened door.
The most of the zones are fine, but the final zone is just terrible. The main foe is a flying orb that shoots bullets all over the place. It hits you hard, yet you only deal minor damage. The only way to kill it without any hassle is to lure it to a healing point.
Because you’re a little girl stuck in an unknown world, the usual health bar is replaced with fear. When it's full, you'll "die" and recover at the nearest save spot. You also lose money you had gathered since the last save. But it's not as bad as it sounds because there are plenty of healing lights and money.
When you come close to bright lights, your fear vanishes. These can be lights scattered around the map or mushroom dwellings. These holes in trees serve a number of purposes. Besides healing and saving, you can also use them to teleport between all visited holes or enter a shop.
The shop doesn't have much to offer. Half of the inventory consists of several healing lights and an item that serves as an extra life when you die. Because healing places are plentiful, you should save your money for permanent upgrades. These are available in three kinds and can make an already simple game much simpler.
The first boosts your fear threshold, the second increases the number of lightdrops from defeated enemies, and the third increases the flashlight's damage. All three can be purchased several times, with each subsequent purchase being more expensive. Aside from lightdrops, the upgrade also takes a portion of the flashlight's experience points. This is usually worthwhile because even a level 1 flashlight with improved damage can kill basic opponents in a single hit.
Unfortunately, these upgrades either add very little later in the game or there’s a threshold on how much damage you can deal to an enemy. My attacks kept doing the same tiny amount despite several upgrades to the lv.10 flashlight.
The outfits, though, are perhaps the coolest thing. Each store has one or two that are little easter eggs for popular games. Besides changing the girl’s appearance, they also come with special modifiers that is switched on or off in the extras sections. Most of these perks fix a lot of issues, such as a more powerful light that makes the last part a lot easier.
