For reference, I completed the game's extra ending on hard mode with 19/20 trinkets.
TWWWR was a solid (yet brief) action experience.
The art and sound design are very impressive; TWWWR's desolate, bizarre world is convincingly sold to the player by a beautiful pixel art style that contrasts bright colors and vibrant flora with moody shadows and decaying metal structures, and a soundtrack that keeps you immersed with ambient synths and droning bass tones. The characters designs were also very cute; I'm a sucker for any game where every character is inexplicably an anime girl, especially one in a little raincoat and a bucket hat.
The gameplay itself was overall solid. I think its strongest aspect was the customization options afforded to players by the trinket system. I like that you start with very little; you walk slowly and shoot only a short distance, you can't fire and move at the same time, drops aren't pulled towards you, etc. The game makes you think about your priorities in any given scenario, and I appreciated that. I also enjoyed the jumping mechanic a lot, which is something that a lot of top-down actions games go entirely without. Jumping over bullets and bottomless pits felt mostly intuitive and satisfying, and it gave me a sensation of being "in-control", like I could always react quickly to an unexpected bullet. In combat, shooting felt very natural from the get-go, and I think relegating customization to trinkets alone by only offering one type of gun was a smart idea - you point the mouse and shoot, no need to over-complicate. Normal enemies had enough variety to keep combat interesting, and the bosses were very well-designed and provided an engaging challenge at the end of every section (I especially enjoyed the more difficult, optional rematches).
I have two main criticisms of the game. Firstly, the game's detailed, layered pixel art created a lack of clarity during gameplay. In short, depth was difficult to parse at times, and I walked off a lot of ledges that didn't look like ledges. Secondly, only being able to jump over orange bullets didn't always visually track, and it led to some frustration. I was able to tolerate some of the easier-to-see bullets like the big circles some bosses fire at you, but I just couldn't manage to justify to myself during the course of the game why I was able to jump over orange fire but not blue fire. Neither of these criticisms ruined my experience of the game, but I felt they made the gameplay weaker.
The only other things I have to say about TWWWR are "could-haves", which I don't really consider to be criticisms. There could have been more enemy variety and more difficult normal enemies, there could have been more hidden rooms, collectibles, and incentives to explore, there could have been whackier, more unique trinkets, the characters and story could have been more fleshed out, etc. These thoughts didn't detract from my experience with TWWWR, though. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game, especially for such a low price. If anything, those "could-haves" just make me more excited for what this team will put out next.
