Vernal Edge

This game sits right at the edge of being amazing and just being "kinda okay." There are a lot of things it gets right but will have one little thing that keeps it from being perfect. The movement abilities and skills you get through the game are really cool and fun and unique, but sometimes they feel a little imprecise and some platforming sections get a little awkward for it. The character designs are great and the story has an interesting setup, but a lot of those characters don't really get fleshed out and the payoff on the overall story is underwhelming. I love a good story of a character on a quest of revenge to kick their terrible parent's ass, but it felt like the final payoff on the story didn't quite hit. It didn't feel like the reasons for your father's actions were well explained enough to really give the overall narrative a good payoff. The combat is fun and tough and rewarding when you really get into a good flowstate, but the constant being locked in arenas, minimal enemy variety, and just how intensive the combat is designed to be with having to combo, juggle, and break through guards... well it can wear on you. The arena tower, while on one hand being one of my favorite parts of the game, was also the most draining. There were a few sections of the game where when I finished I just needed a break and put the game down for a while. Aesthetically the game nails it. I love the way zones were broken up into sky islands and while there isn't a lot to flying the ship around the overworld to go between areas, it still had this charm to it and I'm glad it's there. It could have been a simple menu that you scroll through and select the area you wanted to visit and it would serve the same function but something about being able to fly a little low poly ship between floating islands makes "level select" feel more part of the world. Overall I really enjoyed the game and I do think it's worth playing if you're a big metroidvania fan and looking for something that has a bit of unique feel. The combat was clearly the focus, and for me it really clicked, it just was *a lot* sometimes. I definitely would say to give it some time for you to really get used to the combat, it's one of those systems that rewards mastery and the better you get at it the more fun it becomes to juggle enemies to death.

Way too many copy paste enemies even the ones from the very beginning, they just get super armor to make them tougher. There's like a dozen types of enemies in the whole game. It also goes out of its way to be annoying, often sending you back to your ship before you can collect things, like the map to the area, making you have to go back the full length of a zone to find it. What really cements this as a negative review is most of the final bosses have a horrible mix of unblockable and undodgable moves, some that will end up being both, turning battles into a crude DPS and luck check to make sure they don't spam those attacks specifically and kill you before you can kill them, made worse by the moves that you CAN dodge or block were often bugged, removing the tell and hitting me unexpectedly, or leaving the attack indicator lines on the screen while the attack never came. A few of the jumping puzzles also really show that the system was badly tested and barely functions, especially towards the end, where the double jump refused to work or wall running failed because a gate was in the way.

I am just writing this review because I think game deserves to "very positive" rating not "mostly positive".

Queria gostar, infelizmente não gostei. O jogo é bonito, a arte é legal, a música é legal. A progressão é estranha, o controle podia ser mais preciso, os inimigos são esponjas de dano e parece que as batalhas são meio deslocadas do jogo. Mas muita gente gosta, então valeu a tentativa.

-Unique and fun combat system. There could be more spells, though. -The lack of maps does NOT do the game any favors. Plus the game is pretty vague about where to go and what to do. -Movement is very innovative, if not always intuitive. -Story is solid; nothing groundbreaking, but solid. -The art has some rough spots, but the game is far from ugly. -The music adds a really good atmosphere. Overall, Vernal Edge is a great game to sink your teeth into. Would be happy to revisit someday.

The negative reviews that mention control problems are true. The controls and the battles are far from perfect for the genre biggest hits. But even with that in mind, the core for a great metroidvania hit is there, even in that somewhat flawed movement and combats there is a really good intuition of what does a game of the genre good. Hoping for a next metroidvania from this devs that perfects the formula. TL;DR: Game flawed but good. Bit hard to control. Good level design. If on sale and fan of the genre: buy.

I would have vote for a Neutral review, not recommended, but people could like it. The movement is interesting, The combat is/could be complex And the map are fun to explore. However some zone doesn't seem to have map, or map are incredibly hard to find. All biome zone or section within the same section look identical, without a fog of war showing where you did go its extremely confusing. I would continue play that game if there was an actual map with fog of war or something. But in the current state, backtracking, searching, branching zone just make it painful.

Where the ♥♥♥♥ am I? Where the ♥♥♥♥ am I going? Where are the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ maps?

A hidden gem I stumbled upon while looking for cheap games this summer sale. Lovely spritework, great soundtrack, fun movement, and good lord, the combat. The fighting is actually so good and varied. You get to deal really sick combos, get new spells to do even cooler stuff, get new ways to defend. If you like metroidvanias, get it. It's really good.

yo soy el bernardo el edgy