Having played Luna Nights before and finally having gotten to this one, I can confidently say that Team Ladybug just doesn't miss.
I've made the mistake of playing this without watching the anime first, so most of the references and context were lost on me, but there was a very specific emotional core and theme to it that still hit me at the end. I'll have to catch up on the series soon, if anything this got me hugely interested.
Now, whereas Luna Nights kinda did its own thing despite obvious inspirations, Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth is a lot more blatantly inspired by Symphony of the Night than by anything else: it's apparent in the animations, the way weapons work, Deedlit even leaves afterimages behind when walking, much like Alucard, it's all pretty obvious. Even if heavily referential in that sense, this one greatly improves and adds onto what SotN did in a way that makes it a joy to play, by making combat and movement a lot more snappy and responsive (you can move while attacking, for one) and by adding some really interesting unique mechanics.
At the core of the game is an element-swapping mechanic based off the two spirits you have available, each granting your attacks one type of elemental damage while also making you immune to it, which leads to really interestingly designed bossfights where you need to be swapping constantly (thankfully it only takes a button press). It get a little brain-melting with the more frantic fights, but it's a lot of fun. It's not a hard game at all, and that's fine!
Exploration felt pretty great for me in this one, most of the time traversal doesn't feel like a chore the way it does in some other metroidvanias. The map and locales may not have been the most inspiring and original thing, but they did their job.
One thing that felt really half-baked and baffling was the inclusion of shops; in Luna Nights they mostly made sense, but here the weapons you can buy are often really expensive and only marginally better than what you realistically have available, not to mention you're basically guaranteed to find something better for free by exploring shortly after having found one said shop.
The bow felt a little unwieldy to use for a while, but I didn't take too long to get used to it, and it's still a nice option to have; there's also a handful of puzzles that require using it in somewhat creative ways, and they were pretty fun.
The graphics and music are, of course, top notch. It does feel a little silly to watch Deedlit walk basically the same way as Alucard though. One other thing I could fault the game for in this sense is that it gets somewhat cluttered visually during some bossfights: a lot of the bosses are human-sized and there are quite a few visual effects going off when you attack and do things, which leads to having trouble reading their animations and reacting accordingly if you're not taking a break from attacking to specifically do so. Thankfully these bosses work mostly through predictable patterns though, so after at most 3 tries you're bound to have the rotation figured out in a way where reading the attacks isn't even needed. Still could have been handled better.
Anyways great game, I'll watch the anime soon enough.
