Three switchable characters with unique combat and traversal abilities, but the metroidvania elements are barely present, your perfect run can be ruined by missable items and enemies, and the lack of objectives leads to frequent and frustrating backtracking.
Sol is the first character, and she fights with a sword, cutting down enemies in close combat. She also has a dash that can be used in any direction, letting her slip past threats or reach higher platforms. The second character, Mona, uses a bow to attack from a distance. She can also summon a temporary rock from the ground, which works both as a defensive barrier and as a way to reach higher areas.
When it comes to traversal, Mona is even more flexible because she can freely climb vertical walls without any restrictions. The two characters start on opposite sides of the map, and you take turns controlling them as they make their way forward until they eventually meet and face each other in the middle. From that point on, you can switch between them with the press of a button.
Combat and traversal depend heavily on which character you are using. Before starting the game, you can also choose the difficulty. There is an easy option that makes both combat and platforming more forgiving, but the normal mode already feels well balanced and manageable if you want the intended experience. The important thing is that both options contain the same content, so you will not miss anything regardless of which one you pick.
Enemies, for the most part, can be avoided. Fighting them is usually a waste of time because they do not give you anything in return. There is no contact damage either, so you only get hurt during their attack animations. Some enemies behave more like obstacles since they might block your path or ambush you, forcing you to defeat them in order to remove a barrier. Even so, it is worth killing at least one enemy of each type because that creates an entry in your journal. This matters mainly for an achievement tied to discovering every enemy, and it is surprisingly easy to miss a few along the way.
Exploration follows a structure that feels similar to a metroidvania. The world map is made up of squares that expand as you enter new rooms, while certain characters can automatically reveal portions of it when you talk to them. The story plays a big role, and the characters have a lot to say, with many cutscenes presented through beautiful static illustrations. Each square on the map has small lines marking its exits, which makes it easy to spot paths you have not taken yet. If a room contains something important, such as a character or a save point, an icon will appear inside the square as well.
Because enemies do not drop anything, the game also lacks money and meaningful collectibles. Dying does not cost you anything either. In practice, this removes much of the excitement from exploring. Even though the art style is lovely, you often end up moving from room to room simply to reach the next objective rather than because you are curious about what might be hidden there.
There are a few exceptions. You can occasionally find special spots and items that increase your health or damage, and there are barriers that can only be destroyed from the opposite side to create shortcuts. A handful of strange mini games appear too, such as catching mushrooms, though they feel oddly disconnected from the rest of the experience. Overall, the sense of discovery is surprisingly weak.
When you die, you respawn at the last save point. These are large trees that fully restore your health when you interact with them. Healing can also come from smaller star shaped trees scattered around the world. Those allow you to heal once, and they restore when you rest at a large tree. Each character has their own health bar, which works well during combat and boss fights. It becomes more awkward, however, in difficult platforming sections where you need everyone to stay alive.
This becomes even more noticeable later in the game when the characters are transformed into small animals and a third member temporarily joins the group. In this form, each character is limited to a single ability. One can double jump, another can dig through the ground, while the third is the only one capable of attacking. If any character dies, whether in animal or normal form, you must wait a short time for them to recover with a single heart.
The system prevents you from getting permanently stuck, but it makes forced fights frustrating. The worst moments happen during boss fights in animal form. Since only one character can deal damage, you are left dodging with the others and waiting for the attacker to recover. Meanwhile the boss keeps spawning helpers, so by the time the attacking character is back, the screen can be filled with enemies, making the fight feel almost impossible.
Fortunately, the animal section is limited to a single area of the map. Once you finish it, the third character reveals their true role as a mage who can see magical objects, summon a guardian dog to attack enemies, and teleport. Around this point another major issue becomes clear, and that is the lack of clear objectives or direction. The game never tells you where to go or what you should be doing next. You can still make progress by checking unexplored parts of the map, but many situations require finding an item that is neither marked nor hinted at in any meaningful way. You might even be standing in the correct room and never realize the item is there.
Because of this, backtracking becomes a serious problem. It is easy to end up wandering across the entire map just to locate a single thing you missed earlier. There are caves that serve as fast travel points, which should help with this, but their placement is inconsistent. The strangest example is the main village, which does not have one at all, forcing you to travel through several screens every time you want to return there.
There is some fun to be had, and a lot of care clearly went into the cutscenes and the illustrations in your journal, which fills with entries for every enemy and character you encounter. However, much of the game is spent wandering without clear direction, often not knowing what to do or why certain paths are blocked, and the metroidvania elements feel too basic to recommend it to fans of the genre, especially with missable items and enemies that block you from getting all achievements and ruin your perfect run without even realizing it.
