Shadow Labyrinth

This game is genuinely bewildering and while I understand why it might’ve gotten a cool reception I’m not sure why it’s so overtly negative. It’s possible I’m coming after a wave of polish and bugfixes but overall the game’s fine. The map is a bit sprawling, the difficulty curve of combat is a bit jagged, and it’s easy to meander for a while without major upgrades, but there’s a competency at the core of this game that’s worth the price of admission. The real headscratcher is why Pac-Man is a crass robot girl in a sci-fi magitech metroidvania. Structurally and tonally this game isn’t dissimilar from something like Afterimage but instead of a waifish anime girl it’s a clumsy robot body dressed in rags that Pac-Man possesses in order to summon a giant ichor simulacrum that eats corpses. Then you turn into a Gundam. Tantalizingly bizarre. Worth $15 just to know it actually exists.

Played on OG 512 Steam Deck without any issues. This is an ok game, it’s really large and typically I love that but I couldn’t keep playing it after finally getting the most important ability in a Metroidvania so far along into the game. This one is curious in that I never got an ability and felt like there was a place I wanted to revisit now, just couldnt think of it. Game is good overall and has accessibility options so be ye not afraid. Enjoyed the pac man rails too. I held off on this one at launch and glad I did. I liked this game overall.

Before I start this review, a warning: If you play the game at 60FPS (default) or an uncapped framerate, it's pretty much guaranteed to break the game to an incredibly boring or impossible to progress state. I was able to fully enjoy the game at 120FPS and v-sync off, however (and I only have a 60Hz monitor). I tried this game because I love Pac-Man. This was the first metroidvania game I was ever able to actually get through to the end. Others I have gotten bored or frustrated quite early on. But then this one hooked me, and I played all the way through to the end and even decided to 100% the game. Exploring was quite addicting, and it was fun to go back and utilize the new abilities as I uncovered them in the places I had been before. This is a staple of the genre, though. I never felt like the game got tedious. There are fast-travel save points frequently enough that you never feel like you have to run through too much of the empty areas, and the map is easy to read and understand with helpful icons that help you know where you have and haven't been and what you need to do in the places you had to leave behind because you didn't have what was needed to progress. I did take a bit of notes, but a lot of times I didn't even have to reference them, because I was able to tell what was possible to do just by looking at the in-game map. The game does put a giant question mark icon on the map over items you haven't picked up as long as they have been on the screen (even if it was only a pixel of it, and even if it was obscured by a foreground wall or something to make it 'hidden,' so there's not really a point to even hiding them a lot of the time because the map will just tell you where it is anyway. I think this did make finding all the items quite easy, but honestly I would not really enjoy it if there were tons of hidden items where you needed to slide under a small rock to go behind a foreground wall and there was no way to see you could do this without looking extremely carefully at every single bump along your journey or worse, pressing against every single wall or something just in case you can walk through it. The game does feel a bit easy at times; I don't know if this is normal for the genre, but most of the time you're just kind of running and doing simple platforming while fighting weak enemies as you move from place to place. That could be intentional, though. Then you will have some segments that can be quite challenging, whether it's because of tricking platforming required or fighting a difficult boss. Many of these challenges felt very satisfying to overcome. There is an item farming mechanic -- when you defeat an enemy you can optionally eat it (which takes a second in which you cannot move but are still capable of taking damage) and convert its body into an item. You then can turn these items into perks in a crafting-like system, among other things. To be honest, I didn't do a lot of 'grinding' and was able to get everything in the game. I just kind of ate most things I came across, especially if I felt the item drop from them was more rare. Later you get perks to increase Ora drops (money you get for defeating enemies) and double your item drops (sometimes even tripling or quadrupling a drop). Ora becomes a non-issue after a while, but early on you'll be making some decisions on where to spend it. I probably only spent about 2 to 3 hours refighting the minibosses to try to get rare drops from them, and those hours were spread out over the course of my 50+ hour playthrough. At the very end when I was doing 'cleanup,' I only needed 5 types of items to finish buying all the perks. I got 3 of these items in about 2 minutes, and then the other two types I did have to fight some minibosses several times before they dropped them, but I'd just go fight them after a few attempts at doing other things I needed to, so it never felt annoying. One of the minibosses only took seconds to defeat, too. Overall, I found this game to be far less tedious than other metroidvania games I have tried, and the challenges when they were presented were very fun. The exploration always felt chill and satisfying, and figuring out some of the solutions to advance was fun as well. There are a bunch of perks that I never bothered to equip, and most of the ESP abilities (special moves) I found little to no use for. One of them I used a single time, and a few others I never utilized at all other than to just try them out. There's also a mech that you can transform into, and I basically never used it outside of the times the game forces you to use it to progress. The story was interesting enough. The main characters weren't particularly amazing, but the underlying lore to the universe in the game was pretty cool, and I enjoyed learning about it. I would really like to see a sequel or something that explores this universe further. PUCK, the little Pac-Man buddy that follows you, ended up surprising me with her depth as a character, and there were some moments that quite surprised me as well. Throughout the game there are also many references to classic Namco games, which is really cute and fun. I had fun trying to piece together the lore and overall story as I went before a lot of the bigger reveals late in the game. in conclusion, this game sparked my interest in trying other games in the genre, because I found this one to be quite enjoyable. i never felt bored or frustrated in my time playing except for about 15 minutes when I thought the double jump timing was just obnoxiously precise before figuring out that the framerate was breaking the game. I really enjoyed learning some of the boss patterns and putting together different perk builds for different parts of the game. The grind never got to me as I was able to do most of it here and there over the course of regular play. I never had to consult any guides or outside information, as the game gave me enough information to do everything on my own, and there were no super arbitrary solutions to anything. I don't know what other games in the genre are really like beyond the first hour or two of play, but unlike the others I have tried, I never got frustrated or bored with this one, and had a blast playing for over 50 hours. So I'm not sure if I can recommend it to fans of the genre as I can't fairly compare it to anything else, but in general if you just want a good time for 50 hours I feel like this game was quite satisfying.

why the enemies can't hurt mee???? bombs hit my face blow up deal no damage????

Bought the game post patch 1.1 and I think contrary to the reviews at launch, the game is decently enjoyable as a whole if not a bit repetitive during the last quarter. In its current state veteran Metroidvania players should have no problems finishing the game at veteran mode. It’s a meaty game at ~30hrs, Combat lacks variety but the tech is decently fun. Map design may be a bit incoherent at times but feels good (not great) to explore. Biggest cons are the Pac-Man sections which are still bad, grinding for materials, and end game boss HP scaling. I’d recommend the game on sale for those that can look past completing everything 100% and want the novelty of playing a Pac-man metroidvania.

途中までのプレイですがおすすめしません。 アップデートで難易度変更やパックマンの操作性が改善されたと聞き購入しましたが、難易度は兎も角パックマンの操作性は本当にこれで改善されたのか？　と疑うレベルでした。 ガイドがあっても曲がり角等でジャンプしたら予想しない所にジャンプしギミックダメージを受ける始末… オマケ要素なら無視してもいいが、ストーリーに組み込まれると無視する訳もいかずイヤイヤする羽目に。 メトロイドヴァニア部分はサクサク進めて爽快感があり面白いだけに残念です。 コチラはメトロイドヴァニアをプレイしたいのであってパックパンをしたい訳じゃないのになぁ…（泣）

正月休みにやり残しを片付けるためにプレイしたら、 当たり判定がおかしなことになっていた。 敵攻撃に当たり判定が無く、パリイが出来ない… （モード変更なし） 流石にもういいかな

いわゆるUGSFに紐づいたストーリーやビジュアルは見ごたえがあるものではあったのですが、 有名タイトルと比較して気持ちの良い操作性とは言えない引っ掛かりが多かったり、マップの確認に慣れが必要だったり、2D探索の「めんどくさい」要素の多くを面白さに昇華しきれていない印象がただひたすらに残ってしまった。 序盤~中盤までストーリーや「パックマンであること」の意図が見えてこないのもしんどかった。 自分がプレイした時点ではMAZE関連の難易度が調整されていたようでPUCK操作は苦には感じませんでした。某リズムゲームでしか聴いたことない過去シリーズのBGMが雰囲気に合わせて採用されてたなど結構感心するとこもあったり。 とはいえ「パックマンが好き」だけならSteamで買えるオムニバス系列や、直近のパックマンワールド リパックシリーズの方が肌に合いそうです。 「探索が好き」だけでも厳しい。 「ナムコット好きで2Dアクションにも興味が出てきてある程度覚えがあるのでなんとなくそれに近しいタイトルに手出したい」ぐらいの人なら余すとこなく楽しめるんだろうなと思います。

現在のバージョン1.1.0は仕様の変更による難易度の低下によって、発売当初のバージョンが持っていた緊張感や達成感が大きくオミットされて、はっきりいって面白くなくなった 最初からこのバージョンで出ていれば自分には合わないゲームだったと諦めもつくが発売当初のバージョンはそうではなかった 難易度を選択できるようにしたのだから発売当初の難易度でも遊べる選択肢を追加してほしい、ユーザーに一度売り渡した面白いゲームを後から取り上げるようなことは止めてほしい （追記） コンソールを操作してリリースバージョンの1.03を取り戻したので怒りがおさまりました このゲームは最高です

the game of all time