Waki & the lost spirits

Very narrowly recommending this, It's very 'meh' honestly. It's an entirely linear level based platformer. The mention of metroidvania similarities in the games description can mislead you to expect backtracking and exploration, there is none of that. The game is sufficiently challenging at least, though much of that comes from it feeling like a pretty raw 'solo devs first game'. The price tag is at least probably reasonable.

Beautiful sprite art, good story, with really good feeling platforming. Before going on, this is 100% worth your purchase. It's gorgeous, fun and a good game. I am eager to see what the developer releases in the future. It shows a great deal of polish and the characters and environments are fantastic to look at. I want to explore this world again! That being said, the game can be really frustrating at times. Boss fights can feel borderline unfair and [i]drag[/i] on and on. I think it's a case of developer difficulty where they felt the fights were fairly balanced, but for a newcomer a lot of it feels less approachable. These fights feel like throwing yourself at a wall repeatedly until you learn to optimize it perfectly or find a cheesy strategy, which runs contrary to the rest of the game which is a pretty breezy, almost casual, experience. There are also instances of near-pixel perfect platforming segments that last huge areas with no checkpoints and require timing a jump at the very end of a fast moving platform's path and having to just pray that an unseen, off-screen enemy's movement cycles don't place them at the edge of the platform you're trying to land on. Falling means restarting the whole segment. As for the Metroidvania tag, I can see why it might be there, but it feels kind of misleading. The game is very linear. Movement abilities do continue to be unlocked and give you more platforming options, but there is no backtracking to earlier screens to reach new areas outside of the hub area.

Mom can we get Hollow Knight? We have Hollow Knight at Home The Hollow Knight we have at home: this game isn't really a metroidvania its a level by level platformer and that's not bad its just that this game is labeled as a metroidvania. unfortunately what is bad is the super floaty platforming, frustrating hitboxes in combat and instant death pits. The visuals are great though honestly makes me wish Spinola would match pace with Penusmic who did the art and you'd have a great game. as it is this game has shiny packaging around a loaf of very stale bread.