Stardust Demon

Good game so far, haven't finished yet. I'm currently stuck going through all the past worlds trying to find 4 specific key items to continue the game. Saying this it also means that the game is not doing the best job at leading me to where they are and finding secrets and getting items is going to be something that will probably make me feel overwhelmed. To this I warn you of the following: If you don't like games that don't tell you where to go exactly... This game will be dropped after a while since you won't know where to go. But if you like games that do that, then you are good to enjoy the game... Just know that the map is IMMENSE and the game expects to make use of your time trying to find items and secrets around. I'd love it to be streamlined into leading me to the end, but alas, this is what this game chose to be. I am happy I expected more than a Cave Story clone and I am guessing I've got that at least. I might update this review once I beat this game (if I do) Nonetheless... This game is stressing me and I don't want my friends to go through it like I am atm. Edit 16/03/25 Just finished the game. I still think the same. Hard to know where to go and not the most satisfactory gameplay... The songs are amazing, if there's only one reason to buy this game it's for the songs <3

Another game with a good premise and bad execution.

lost motivation at the late game and gave up basically, my main issue is that i went into this [i]for[/i] the narrative, and it turns out stardust demon is really not a game you play for the narrative. the aesthetic is great, the premise is intriguing, and the writing offers decent set dressing if you're really into the gameplay, but every character is consistently and offputtingly infantile in how they speak and behave. there's a bit of edge to the writing, but it's hard not to feel like i'm spending my time reading dialogue intended for eight year olds

This is a fun little Metroidvania that has a few odd balancing decisions, but is still good enough overall to recommend. I love the visuals throughout and the soundtrack is excellent with plenty of great melodies for exploration. Character design is very out there and it's wonderful to see. I think there are some balancing flaws with the weapon system. The basic fireball is weaker in every way to the reflecting shot but they are treated equally for assigning ammo upgrades. And for being so heavily reliant on block and laser puzzles for secrets, the fact both the laser and mirror have ammo and don't always have refill sources outside of self-damage spots is a bit silly at times. Bosses are a bit too spongy for my taste. I will admit I did not finish, mostly because I got to what I assume was a final boss and just found myself running out of all ammunition despite having my attack berries all maximized. The refills are all random too, so I found myself not getting enough ammo to retaliate against a huge health bar. I wish the refills prioritized the ammo you have less of, like in Super Metroid. I did go around looking for more items afterwards, explored a bunch, and enjoyed finding secret areas, but nothing I found really seemed like it would mitigate the sponginess of the boss or make the fight more manageable. If that doesn't put you off though, this game was a really enjoyable time with some fun upgrades and a lovely set of weird alien planets to explore. Play the demo and check it out!

If you're coming to this from Mibibli's Quest hoping for more of that then prepare to be disappointed. It's just a lot of the same puzzles, very very basic platforming, and spammy mindless combat. If you haven't played Mibibli's Quest just play that.

Ok I am re-editing my previous review. I think this game is alright, but big disclaimer: This game is kind of hard and I think the difficulty spike does ramp up a lot from the second section of the game and specially on the extra areas that you can access early. Other than that it's alright for the most part, don't really like how most of the game is set up since it kind of betrays the fact that it's a metroidvania and then like most of your time spent is going to be on challenge rooms, I specially dislike the mirror puzzle on just how many there are in the game, they really slow down the flow of the game in favor of something else, I recommend to not even bother doing these legit, just turn cheats on for "other berries" at least, and also full health on death, it just kind of makes no sense not respawning with full health. I think the art, the story and the music are all great, the story is a little weird considering how Mibibli's goes down and how different in tone that is, but I like the change of tone, it's cute but being honest it feels a little forced or kinda fake since there's a different game to compare it to when it comes to it, it also kind of mishmashes a little since the game gets super hard. Most of my playtime I didn't enjoy the game that much, the start was great but after getting to the promotories it kinda went downhill, but I can't deny that the music and the art are all worth of giving it a shot, if it gets too hard just turn cheats on and definitelly check the guide, I did get stuck on how to proceed in the bloodvex and had to check what I had to do there, so do check that in case you have the same issue there.

This game is beautifully presented, with well-chosen colour palettes and character animation which (at least for the most part) feels smooth. The soundtrack is a fusion of classic chiptune with real instruments which does a great job at setting the mood, both for the current biome and the adventure as a whole. The writing is okay - the backstory is revealed in a satisfying way, and there's a fun, diverse mix of characters. Friendship and character development are central tenets of the story, and it can come off a bit cheesy at times, but I thought that was a welcome change from other games I've played recently. The block puzzles never took me too long to solve, but were usually clever enough for the solution to feel rewarding. The platforming can get challenging at times, particularly when trying to get the optional collectibles, but the truly hard rooms have Revival Stones which respawn you instantly with whatever HP/items you came in with, so you're free to keep trying until you figure it out. Though there's a few sections which rely on well-hidden game mechanics which I didn't know about until I'd seen the developers mention them in Steam Community posts. Hidden mechanics aside, I thought the difficulty curve was tuned reasonably well - there were some truly challenging moments, but nothing felt too frustrating. The only exception was that my controller's battery died just as I had reached the third boss, and the game stopped responding to all input (even keyboard) so I had to force-quit and traverse that area again. There's a small number of quality-of-life issues like that. A major annoyance was having to sit through the dialogue again every time I retried a boss. Also, when you respawn after dying, the game only seems to restore 20 HP, which didn't make sense considering that I could quit+reload and return with whatever HP I last saved with. This might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I had fun with it. And I thought the true ending was worth the effort - all I'll say is "justice gets served".

very charming! requires a fair amount of patience (bosses can be pretty spongy and there are a lot of strangely cruel challenge rooms) but I had a nice time with it. I, too, want my very own blood castle...

A fun little game very reminiscent of Cave Story. Some interesting visuals and really great music. I enjoyed it a lot.

Overall good game with lots of content. Biggest downside for me are the first 1-2 hours of the game that were pretty slow and not very fun, a shame because after that the game really shines.