[b]The game is [i]okay.[/i][/b] If I could give it a neutral rating while providing my thoughts, I would. But I am going to give it Not Recommended on the bases of 1. its $20 price, 2. I feel it has been overhyped, and 3. negative reviews tend to attract more thorough reading.
Allow me to preface by saying the art, music, and for the most part writing (including the random but well-delivered life advice) are all grand. I also think the majority of the gamefeel, level design, and especially bosses are good. If you want a standard fare late 2010s indie platformer with decent length (albeit some repetitiveness), then this game will suit you fine. But a lot of inconsistencies, missed opportunities, and IMO straight-up design failures left me with a sour taste in the end.
For the sake of brevity, I am going to just list off my criticisms from here. I trust you, reader, can understand that whatever I [i]don't[/i] mention from here is fun and executed well. Please keep in mind I 100%'d the game but did not bother with New Game+ for reasons I will get into. [b][i]Review contains SPOILERS that I won't bother censoring. You've been warned.[/i][/b]
1. Money is pointless
I'm not [i]totally[/i] against the idea of collecting money for upgrades, especially when the game challenges you to do riskier maneuvers or be extra explorative in order to get more of it. However, there are four main problems. One: the quickest way to grind money is the absolute safest: reach a checkpoint that just so happens to be one screen away from a giant pile of money (or two), then repeatedly grab the money, save and quit, and load from your checkpoint. Two: once you have bought all the unlocks, there is nothing to spend it on. Three: the punishment for death in the base game (which is not directly losing money but instead being denied the first few of your money pickups after respawning) can be completely bypassed by saving and quitting or reloading areas. Four: the way New Game+ handles money is absolutely atrocious, forcing you to mindlessly grind up significant amounts of money to keep on-hand or else be sent back to the [i]very beginning[/i] of New Game+1 when you die (for those who don't know, New Game+ is cyclical and scales continuously with each completed run). Speaking of which...
2. New Game+ and the Voodoo Mask are both boring rewards
I was hoping New Game+ would give mixed up stage or enemy designs, item/move restrictions, or perhaps being forced to explore areas in an out-of-order way. The fact that all that it really changes are your effective health and the health of bosses does not warrant another playthrough. (The cost for respawning increases with each cycle, too, but again, you can just grind money at no risk.) After going through the effort to collect all the Voodoo Mask pieces, I was very disappointed to learn its effects only applied to New Game+ and just makes you deal more damage and have more health... which, sorry, is lame as hell, especially considering the downside is you immediately forfeit ever being able to respawn again (which makes money even MORE POINTLESS). Come on, give us a sword that shoots lil' lasers or something.
3. Stage design gets repetitive
I stand by that the stage design is largely good, but it doesn't get mixed up much. The game is actually fairly long and has lots of areas, but the gimmicks between areas hardly ever challenge the player in new, innovative ways. Most of the new area gimmicks, even often including the time traveling portals you obtain, almost always ultimately amount to just being another type of fancy switch or button for you to hit/touch to continue platforming. Many of the enemies are constantly recycled, too. What probably kills it most is when the game opens up half-way into a "Metroidvania" with a map, because first of all, the items you pick up to continue progressing barely affect the platforming/combat (if at [i]all[/i]), but secondly, it means going through the same levels you [i]already[/i] have with barely any changes. Also just gotta say it: instant death by pits or crushers is arbitrary and annoying considering you can usually tank 4 to 8 hits, some of the pits are randomly placed where spikes would have sufficed, and sometimes crushers catch you off-guard because they're visually obscured and just barely off-screen by the time you enter their range.
4. Control issues
The addition of the glide is cute. The addition of attacking downwards while gliding is cute. These both should have been given their own inputs to play more intuitively. It is frankly annoying that, whenever you want maximum airtime, you're forced to press Jump, press Jump again and hold it to start gliding, press Attack and hit something [i]below you[/i] (can't hit in front of you while gliding), press Jump to jump off the air, then press Jump [i]again[/i] to start gliding again. This also means that you are physically incapable of initiating a glide immediately after attacking something, because you will be forced to air-jump first. In the same vein, it is annoying that whenever you want to attack downwards, you [i]have[/i] to be gliding, and what will often trip you up while platforming is that if you want to attack [i]forwards[/i] while gliding, you must let go of the glide first. I honestly think just making the downwards attack a simple Down+Attack input that can be used independently of gliding would have been far more fluid and intuitive, but it wasn't usually a huge deal -- just a nuisance.
5. Multiple anti-climaxes
Story-wise, why is the Demon King -- the one who [i]created[/i] the curse -- delegated to an easy, gimmicky mid-game boss? Why is the curse itself the final boss? I get the whole dialogue spiel about "haha you killed me but the curse goes on," but the main aspect of curse is that the demons return every 500 years... and without their [i]king[/i], would they, you know, really be as big a nuisance? I was also sad to find that the final bossfight you can ever encounter (at the end of the DLC, Picnic Panic) is just a poorly explained (poorly even with the after-death tutorial) boxing minigame. Lastly, I was baited into thinking the final cutscene after said final boss was actually an invitation to go back to Colos & Suses and see the seed bloom, but there's not even so much as a new dialogue box for interacting with them or the planted seed.
6. Other nitpicks
Why can't you skip cutscenes even in New Game+? Why isn't there a quick and simple way to rematch bosses? Why only 3 save files? Why can't you turn off upgrades you bought? Why must the Money Wrench cost all your money (made saving up 4k Time Shards feel really pointless)? Why can't you use the Rope Hook while crouched? How did The Prophet know about the locations of the musical notes or about the legend of some final Messenger needing go through a couple trials if these things weren't written in the scroll itself? I strangely found the midgame boss Demon General to be one of the hardest in the game -- not really because of the mechanical skill demanded, but because his attacks and their hitboxes followed unintuitive sequences and had poor telegraphs (his return-to-idling animation is like three times longer and flashier than the actual windup to multiple of his attacks), making it relatively difficult to [i]learn[/i] how you're supposed to dodge him.
Alright, that's everything off my chest. I hate to be a hater, but I want to invite better and better design in the future.
