REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS!
One of the better metroid-likes out there! This one contains a lot of pretty unique abilities, and interesting spins on familiar ones! More specifically, this is sort of a Metroid Fusion clone, just without the mission structure.
The game play is generally fun, though sometimes the bosses aren't that great combat-wise. (The final boss is amazing, though!)
The atmosphere is really well done! Bravo for that!
I don't like the "haha, look at me, I'm self-aware meta indie game toad" sense of humor that seems to be everywhere nowadays. But, hey, that might be more your thing than mine! I just personally find it hard to take a game's narrative seriously when it won't take ITSELF seriously half the time.
It also has a bit of the generic indie-game art style, but it's pulled off well enough! Especially the environments!
By default, there will be mixels, so I'd recommend turning the internal resolution down to 1* in the settings if that bothers you! (It bothers me!) The only small issue I noticed with playing it that way is that sometimes your shot won't render when fired to the left. Otherwise, looks great!
The music is pretty good! Not quite my preference, but I enjoyed some of it! Particularly the final two areas!
I didn't find many sequence breaks, unfortunately; only about three. None of them are particularly worth pulling off. The way events in the game world are structured + how short the game is would make sequence-breaking a little bit sussy, but I'd still rather have it than not. I'm at least happy to have what's here! But, yeah; when I say it's similar to Metroid Fusion, that includes the linear progression.
Though, some other reviews seem to disagree on the sequence breaking point. Whether I'm just bad, or we have different definitions on what constitutes great sequence-breaking, I'm not sure. So, take what I say here with a grain of salt!
I found how often the bosses did the "Hahahaaaaa, look at me, I'm dead, AHAHAHA JUST KIDDING, YOU IDIOT, YOU TOTALLY FELL FOR IT" shtick kind of annoying. Like, it's cool enough the first time, but after that I'm just sitting here like "Okay, yeah, stop kidding me with the death animation. I know you have another two phases." Even the one where it actually looked dead and the music stopped and everything didn't get me, because a pattern had already been established.
I think my favorite part of the game atmosphere-wise was the containment facility place. The buildup and atmosphere there was sublime! Generally had me on edge in a way games almost never achieve anymore. Great horror vibes!
The game is a bit easy for me; I only really died twice for reasons that weren't me messing around trying to sequence break. But, that's not necessarily a bad thing! I still enjoyed my time with it.
Though, enemies are a bit stingy with drops, so if you're someone who may be less used to this kind of game I'd recommend being extra careful!
One minor complaint I have is that the HUD, with how big and chunky it is, blocks my vision a lot of the time, or creates noise that makes me miss ceiling doors. It could help a lot to make it become semi-transparent when your character is near the top of the screen or something!
The game recommends you play with a controller, but I played with keyboard. My recommendation for keybinds are:
Movement: Arrow keys
Jump: Z
Shoot: X
Dash: A
Weapon 1: S
Weapon 2: C
I experimented with several different mappings as I played, adjusting them as I went to find the most comfortable settings I could. I'd prefer to have dash on left ctrl, but it seemed unresponsive there somehow?
But, yeah. Definitely a great game! Play it if you like Metroid Fusion, play it if you like indie games, play it if you're a Metconster, play it if you like fun.
First play-through completion stats: 2:15:04 - 91%
