Stardust Demon

An optional challenges/exploration focused metroidvania with quirky lovable characters and writing. Its difficulty curve smoothens out as you accumulate health upgrades Gives me nostalgic cave story vibes where. If you like one you'll probably like the other. Similarly to cave story the combat is initially difficult but eventually you find so much health upgrades it's trivialized and you can facetank anything that won't one shot you (death pits mostly). It differentiates itself from CS with its stronger emphasis on optional exploration. Clearing optional challenges (mirror laser bounce puzzles and surprisingly tough platforming) is how you'll accumulate most of your health/ammo upgrades. This game has limited ammo (replenishable from enemy drops). Not a fan of that, but it's only a factor in the early game bosses. Interestingly when your ammo runs out you can still use your fire breath as a short range attack before the projectile fully despawns.

Stardust Demon is a delightful platformer in the 'metroidvania' tradition where re-exploration is key to greater progress. You play Algol, a lazy demon who has been tasked with feeding berries to a statue. Things quickly go out of hand from there as he encounters a new best friend called Scringles, and the story blossoms into something with far greater meaning than you'd initially guess. The narrative and design aspects are interesting in how they portray Algol's character: there are several design decisions relating to Cave Story, specifically Algol's floaty controls and a handful of enemy types + movement patterns. However, as Algol gradually learns to become less self-centered and willing to work to help others, the game reveals a fascinating design philosophy about potential: there's multiple power-ups that make Algol's moveset more fluid but there's also moves in their basekit dash attack that seem sluggish until you figure out how to use it optimally, and then suddenly you can start to move very quickly. The game's storyline is relatively simple platforming that's interspersed by sometimes preposterously difficult side content (I went "you want me to do WHAT?!" several times in multiple rooms that reward you with a Berry Gem) but the way this helps the player gradually move into a greater confidence with the game's challenges has to be admired.

The visuals are fine. I like the pixel art style and the first music track. The rest of the soundtrack is generic, unmemorable, and lacks catchiness. The story seems like it wants to feel important, but it's told in a very superficial way and doesn't offer any deeper surprises or captivating elements. Character movement is sluggish and at times complicated where it should be smooth. The level design is supposed to be varied, but in many places it's more annoying than challenging. The few Metroidvania elements are rather shallow and, due to the forgettable level layouts, end up being more confusing than engaging. There was supposed to be a lot of variety through weapon and level design, but it all falls short and feels clumsy. There are also several poor design choices that go against quality-of-life standards that should be a given by now (e.g., the inability to skip boss intro scenes after the first attempt). All in all, the purchase unfortunately wasn't worth it, because while everything is superficially okay, nothing feels truly polished. In my opinion, not even patching can save it. Possibly an important learning experience for the developers, from which they can grow for their next project-which I’ll definitely keep an eye on.

boring

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

I rate this game a coolio out of julio.

I'm pretty close to the end but feel fairly comfortable doing a review at this point. It's altogether a pretty cute metroidvania with a good variety of puzzles and exploration and combat and all that. A few puzzle rooms/areas remained tricky, if not outright stumping, until the end, but I imagine someone hellbent on 100% could probably figure it out sooner or later. I did have a few I came back to and was able to "ah-hah!" later. The only trouble is that, being a metroidvania, you never quite know sometimes when you *can't* do a puzzle due to some missing powerup or you're just missing out on some obscure or subtle mechanic that isn't really explored heavily. Still though, overall it was pretty fun - the soundtrack was varied and overall I enjoyed what it added. Definitely love the pixel art style and the characters/overall vibe, the story is a bit odd and surreal but remains intriguing throughout. Really I'd give this a solid recommend overall for sure.

If you like your metroidvanias interspersed with vibey crusty CGI cutscenes and cute characters, give this one a shot. It has good puzzle design, a crunchy soundtrack, and Scringles.

This is a phenomenal game for what it is. Just don't go in expecting something that this game isn't, and you'll be quite pleasantly surprised. At first glance, you may expect gameplay quite similar to something like Cave Story. And in some ways, it is definitely similar, like with the art style and charming characters. The actual gameplay ends up being pretty different. Yes, you will notice sections where you just shoot through various enemies, and of course, bosses, but the similarities end there. This game's challenge is not in its combat, and as a metroidvania fan I admit I was expecting more in that regard, but that was due to my own misinterpretation. In any case, I was scarcely disappointed, because this game has its own challenge in its platforming and puzzles, akin to that of Celeste. Anyways, there were certain aspects of this game that stuck out to me, for better or for worse, and to one considering purchasing this game I'd like to address them. The limited ammo mechanic for weapons can definitely come off as strange, and near annoying in the earlier parts of the game, or if you don't do the side challenges that often reward you with more ammo capacity. I am a little shocked that the devs chose to make the puzzle solving abilities constrained with ammo as well, but it honestly never notably got in the way for me. Although, depending on your playstyle, I can see how it would be frustrating at times. Maybe a minor slight on the developers end, regarding the puzzle related abilities being ammo constrained. The regular weapon ammo is not really an issue at all, considering you can still use them, and personally I really enjoyed the progression aspect of gaining more ammo capacity and assigning them to different weapons/abilities based on the scenario. It was something really unique and by the end of the game I had more than enough ammo to do whatever I wanted without really caring about how much ammo I had. I can't think of many more problems I had with the game other than that, except maybe the boss fights. Aside from the final boss, they were a little too easy, and it seemed like they were given insane amounts of health in attempt to balance that. Honestly though, it just makes the fights more tedious since most of them only have a few moves that get old quick. I really liked their designs visually, it just felt like there could have been more done with them. I guess that's really just a minor nitpick as well though. I think the only part of the combat that felt challenging was the last area of the game, but even then it was still very forgiving. The stealth sections were kind of hit or miss, some of them felt fun and fairly challenging, but at times it got a bit tedious and felt annoying to go through. I will admit I am kind of biased towards disliking stealth sections in games, they just are rarely enjoyable for me. Thankfully it's not too bad in this game, sometimes it was a little hard to understand what was triggering the noise meter but eventually I got it down almost to a science and rarely had trouble after that. Just unfortunately takes some trial and error. The platforming was quite fun! It's definitely a lot more responsive and less slippery than Cave Story, that's for sure. I didn't get to all of the challenge rooms but I did a majority of them and as much as I was able to complete they all proved a fun challenge and nothing really felt especially unfair. The game is pretty generous with save points, and most puzzles have them in the same room or very close by, so you don't have to worry about something like the Hell sequence in Cave Story. It feels like they were going for a Celeste feel for some of the puzzle rooms and honestly they got pretty close! It's not quite as satisfying but it was still very fun regardless. The non-platforming puzzle rooms were also quite fun, they were like little brain teasers that follow simple rules yet still manage to be complex to a degree. I will say there were a few mechanics I felt were not really explained well in the game, but the devs wrote out a guide in the steam community tab that is very well written and I am extremely appreciative towards them for doing so. Definitely check that out if any puzzles have you completely stumped. The story is as absurd as one would expect from the trailer, but strange as it sounds, it never felt out of place. It was always in touch with itself in the way that the absurdity felt consistently absurd as opposed to all over the place with nothing to follow. I think it was a pretty simple story, and if there was any symbolism, I was probably oblivious to it. To me it was just a fun and silly story that I enjoyed every moment of. Definitely nothing super deep or hard to understand. On the other hand, the characters were extremely compelling, I really didn't expect to be drawn so much into their personalities but they had so much depth to them despite the circumstances, so I couldn't help but adore them. I think Algol was my favorite, their character development was unexpected to the extent that was shown but was very welcome! And don't get me started on the music and art. The soundtrack was so different from anything I've ever heard in a 2D pixel art platformer/metroidvania, I'd say maybe Risk of Rain 2's soundtrack would be the most similar, but even then it's only somewhat similar. I've barely listened to anything like it, but I crave to hear more. The artwork is just exceptional, the CGI scenes were so silly and strange and yet I looked forward to every one of them. It fit so well in with the vibe of the rest of the game. And the pixel art animations in this game are so smooth it's so satisfying to the eyes. The character designs are another exceptional aspect of the art, I've really never seen anything like it in games. They fit in very well with the absurdity of this game. Another thing I really liked about this game was the progression. It's not quite like your typical metroidvania, but it still felt extremely rewarding to go back through and do every little thing the game had to offer. Especially since by the late game portion, you have an ability that lets you see all of the treasure chests you missed. It's a really nice addition that a lot of games don't include for whatever reason. There is a bit of a catch to that, with needing to charge the ability per planet, but it barely takes much time at all and it's easily worth the effort. I didn't end up getting to everything in my earlier sessions but I hope to at some point complete the rest of the challenges I have left to do. I will definitely be checking out more games by these developers in the future. Also, a side note, I think there may be some glitch with the achievements because I got the 100% treasure chest achievement despite only having 85%. If you really played and enjoyed every bit of Cave Story, I believe you will be glad you played this game. It is certainly a lot more fair and mechanically tolerable than Cave Story, as much as I love that game it has not aged perfectly. Honestly, I enjoyed this game practically as much as I enjoyed Cave Story. Although, I am also a major Celeste fan, so that probably contributed. If you only like one of those games, or don't like either, this game may not be for you. But to be honest, I would recommend playing it in any case, even if you only have played Cave Story, if only to experience the bizarre story, charming characters, and beautiful art that makes Stardust Demon as unique as its inspirations.

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