Prodigal

This is a solid game, more puzzle-oriented compared to the more traditional take on top-down Zelda-likes. It starts out a bit slower, but has just the right amount of things to do and places to explore for a 6-8 hour run. Plus, there are plenty of things I'm seeing to encourage more play, from romance options (rare for a top-down game like this), equipment that offers permanent buffs, and a second ending. Not for the action-minded, but a solid recommendation. Strict puzzle-players might make do with getting past some of the bosses with the easily accessed buffs from stores, and careful attention to the boss patterns.

You might look at Prodigal and think that it looks like a simple Game Boy game, and that is true to a certain degree. But the game truly has the depth of an ocean if you want it to. The main game is very true to the Game Boy Color, and has pretty short dungeons that are very bite-sized and a respectable commitment to making this a perfect handheld experience. The music and graphics also really sells the illusion of being a pretty authentic Game Boy Color experience. I would describe this game as Zelda gameplay with a touch of Shantae aesthetics. The overworld while not being super huge size-wise, it is jammed packed with content. If you explore you'll always find someone to talk to and something to discover, plus every dungeon has some secret you'll want to find when you re-explore old areas with new gadgets. You will also find a small amount of life-sim adjecent features, such as developing your relationship with characters by spending time with them and helping them out. Eventually being able to marry one of the girls of your choosing. While I wouldn't necessarily say the life sim stuff was my favourite part, I did think the characters where very charming and I enjoyed when they unlocked a new dungeon, aswell as the emotional payoff to some of the more extensive side quests. One thing I really enjoyed is that most of the very hidden secrets rewards you exclusively with lore about the world. It was super interesting to learn more about the world and wow, some of the locations and events they talk about makes me wish we could explore there aswell. Please make a game in the frontier sometimes!!! Once you reach the post game, the game is something completely different. Suddenly it goes from this simple and short Zelda-like to an extensive exploration game with things to do everywhere, side quests galore and tons of secrets and content. My long playtime comes mostly from the post game content alone. When you start a new game you also have an extensive amount of challenge run potential with optional and very difficult curses, plus a built in randomizer. Prodigal is genuinely an incredible experience that is criminally underrated and dirt cheap. I can not recommend this game enough if you enjoy top down Zelda games. HOW IS THIS INCREDIBLE GAME ONLY SITTING AT JUST UNDER 600 REVIEWS.

I want to like this, but I got pretty bored of practically every room in every dungeon being some variation of a block-pushing puzzle. There's a decent variety in that area, but it's not super interesting the 50th time you enter a room and see that you need to figure out how to arrange the barrels and blocks to get yourself to the other side of the room or hold down 4 buttons. Some rooms also initially look like complex puzzles, but actually only require you to move one block out of the way, which is baffling. Unfortunately, the combat is also pretty basic and does not make up for the puzzles. Some of the bosses I fought were decent, but they pretty much all had just one "trick" and some were completely trivial. Healing is also really rare, so you'll frequently die to death by a thousand cuts, sending you back to town and forcing you to redo all the boring, already-solved puzzles to get back to where you were. Mercifully, boss doors always have teleporters next to them, so once you reach the boss it's just an annoying run back from town. Supposedly the NPC interactions are a selling point, but from what I experienced they were mostly trading sequences/fetch quests where you just have to talk to everyone until you find the person who wants the thing you have, they give you something else, and then *maybe* you remember where the person who wanted that thing was (which is not helped by the game's day/night cycle which moves NPCs around). The Game Boy Zeldas were merciful enough to only have one big trading sequence per game. The most positive thing I'll say is, I like the aesthetic elements, and the items they give you are pretty fun to play with. Don't go in expecting to have an inventory full of cool tools to play with like Link, though, there's only 3 not counting the main weapon and you get them pretty quickly. Maybe these things get better later on, but I don't think I'll be finding out.

Little Action Adventure game on the cusp of greatness. Here's a quick feature list: Game has a short (5-8 hrs) and simple start but an extremely extensive (+60 hrs) postgame that expands on every part of the game. Story/characters/narrative also starts off light and simple...and gets more complex and dark the more secrets you uncover. Puzzles are great, though can be exploited if you understand the mechanics/Secret tech/exploits. Which actually makes for a nice bit of player progression. Combat is simple, but with a decent power progression. Postgame difficulty modifiers can make it surprisingly hard. Difficulty is customizable, food buffs and equipment make it significantly easier, alters and curses make it significantly harder. The more you put in the more you'll get out. If ever you don't know what to do, then you can talk to the librarian and she'll give you a hint how to progress. She will lead you into the Postgame nicely. (Though you may want to start another game for New Game+ so that you can see the Alters) My only real complaint is that this game sticks to a set of simple, fundamental, mechanics. It creatively utilizes and expands on them sure... But a little more mechanical depth could bring this game up a tier. For me this is a 7.5 out of 10. That may not sound very high, but I'm pretty harsh with number ratings.

This game has continuously surpassed my expectations, especially in the amount of content. There's like two different postgames here, lots of character stories, extra dungeons, bosses and a surprising amount of lore and worldbuilding. Aside from all that it's a neat looking zelda type game with a cool soundtrack and some neat bosses.

类2D塞尔达游戏，体量远超期望。结局1通关5h，物品收集72/84+真结局14h(若无攻略可能多花2h) +世界观完整，大量背景设定藏在可阅读的书中，加上完全通关解锁所有人的后日谈，给玩家留下充足遐想空间； +npc行为逻辑有类似种田游戏的生活气息。可婚对象10位，但结婚后其他人支线会断掉，不得不遗憾存读档； +解谜部分难度不高可以畅玩，支线进度快还能提早拿到一些逃课装备，直接放空大脑； +-无法随地图存档，探索地牢中途存读档直接回家，不过每个小房间通关进度会保存，这个机制也能用来赶路； -推箱子解谜不能撤销移动，虽然大部分关卡用不上，但个别失误一下就得全盘重来，也因此让我对通关解锁的额外挑战难起兴趣。 PS：创意工坊有汉化，社区有全收集指南

This game slaps so hard it has good gameplay and cute girls my two favorite things in life

A tightly designed, dense, gorgeous little GBC throwback game with a pretty endearing story, fun characters, and some of the best pixel art you'll ever see. Especially for the character portraits. They also manage to get some Zelda-like dungeons in there, which is honestly a pretty difficult feat of game design that few pull off well. I highly recommend it!

OK so first of all, this game has one of the most misleading trailers that I have ever seen. It makes it look like this is a loud and noisy action packed game. It is not, the game is calm, slow, and mostly puzzle focused. Another surprising thing I found is that this is also a dating sim. I think there are a choice of 10 women that you can marry. They include a golddigger, a free spirited ENFP (ended up marrying her since she is similar to my real life wife), an ISFJ nurse, an INTP herbalist, an ISTP operating a mini-game, a dominatrix ENTJ, and more. The one accurate thing about this trailer is the fact that it is a zelda-like and it does a great job of giving you that zeldalike dopamine. There is essentially no map in this game, but the game has thankfully been designed around that fact. Just don't go for 100% completion, that would be torture. Get the game on sale and stop playing once you've beaten it.

real fun game, dungeons felt perfect in length, overworld is small but has tons of things to find. puzzles were nice, though i would've liked more combat personally (especially since the bosses are fun). the main story is short (3-4 hrs) but there is a massive postgame that has like 70% of the content, it's worth sticking around a bit to see what's new. overall recommend.