Shady Knight

Imagine, if you will, cool sword man combos... ...yessss....very nice...

Tasty

This game, while very short, is a brilliant indie that packs really, REALLY good gameplay for a Character-Action game. If you're unfamiliar, think Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden or really any game where you can style on your opponents as a feature. This is a weird one, as it is in first person rather than a traditional 3rd person hack-and-slash, but the depth is there. Every mechanic is tightly woven into the others, making it very easy to get into the flow of the combat which is exceedingly satisfying. Every tool at your disposal has nuances and combos and you often discover a mechanic that makes you wonder how you've played thus far without it. The main drawback is the length - about 5 hours to get through all 41 levels, and I took my time on some of them. There is replay value though, but it's still pretty short. I also find the music very forgettable, in contrast to the sound design. And I understand the frustrations some have with the platforming towards the end - when you have to stop and think for a second to understand what the devs want from you, which completely breaks the flow. All that said, I highly recommend this if you like hack-and-slashes, speedrunning games and deep, stylish melee combat. A bit pricey for its length, but on a sale, it's a no-brainer.

Level theming has minimal creativity and no variety. Level design in general is fun but could be better, custom levels might've fixed this, haven't tried the level creator. Hitboxes are malarky, momentum and scoring are inconsistent in ways that are actually pretty small, but they could definitely mess up someone going for an extreme top score. All that said, I love this game and hope the dev returns to polish it, after his recent success with bloodthief I hope he'll finally show this game the same love. Tldr: Get it, buy it. If you sweat too hard you'll notice that mobility and combo buildup are jank in small ways.

i LOVE the fact that the combo meter is not influenced by time. Gameplay and level design is top tier, really fun (but short) game.

This is most definitely a recommend from me, I've played many game and out of all of them this one has the smoothest movement I've seen and pretty damn great combat mechanics as well. Zipping around the place using the both the environment and weapons to your advantage is not an easy thing to get right, but this game almost does it perfectly. It's both very deep and very varied in its mechanics and how you may approach fights. The game is a melee-focused movement shooter about using the environment to your advantage, the ultimate goal being to beat every level as varied and "stylishly" as possible. The challenge lies in maneuvering the enemies around just right to maximize your score. You could also go for level times though this isn't as geared towards in the general scheme. Almost every level only requires you to reach the "orb" at the end and break it, usually at the very top of a tower-like structure. The game also features a mostly functional level editor and workshop map support. There are many secrets scattered about the game as well, very out of the way yet numerous enough. These can teach you about specialized moves or entire optional challenges. The game has practically no story, at least its a very simplified one. I personally still find the themes and atmosphere interesting though. The character that talks to you between levels is pretty interesting to think about. However the game isn't flawless by my regard. I'll say it seems like development on this game has halted somewhat, which is troubling because a few things are inconsistent and can feel unfinished at times. This is mostly true for the level editor the game lets you screw around with, as it doesn't have everything and the things that are there are greatly simplified. The style system within custom levels also uses a very different system than the official ones, which is weird and again seems unfinished and experimental. The game does have a few other problems I would say. Such as the spear being able to infinitely pogo off enemies, the problem here lies with the game being balanced around enemies being grounded, enemies have practically no way to threaten you if you are airborne (aside from the final boss, but that's the final boss and not the rest of the game obviously). I feel like the spear should be changed to just not be able to do this because its an incredibly easy way to farm enough points to get SSS ranks. Props are also fun to use in combat though they can be jank due to the nature of physics, though as it stands currently the physics are accurate enough to be fun and responsive. Overall id say this is a very solid 8/10 game, do consider if you are interested in the more strategic gameplay of shuffling things around for maximum style output comboed with great movement and many environmental mechanics.