All parts of this game intertwine in a way that's amazing. The atmosphere fits, the art style fits, the music fits, the level design and progression build a great base and the movement ties it all together.

You can access almost every extra area early if you are good enough at the movement. I would spend an hour trying to get a cosmetic and then find out later that there was an unlock that made that cosmetic infinitely easier to get, but it didn't even make me mad.

The time trial crystals were so well mapped out, some required you to do movements that a non-indie game would never have their players think of let alone do. Including jumping off the map on purpose to respawn in a place that gets you to your next crystal faster.

There's never one beaten path to follow on how to get where you want, there are always endless ways you can use the movement system to get where you want.

I couldn't give an analysis on the atmosphere of the game in this kind of review but it really makes the game a unique experience. I know I'll definitely come back to this one some day with a random craving.

As someone who is not familiar with the entirety of the Metroidvania genre, but my favorite game being Megaman ZX I have little to say about that aspect of the game. This game gets most of its praise from the movement alone, and holy shit i agree. It felt insanely fluid and fun playing as sybil and getting more and more of my movement options. What I don't see a lot of talk about is the music. The score is insanely good with there only being a handful of track in the entire game. The final boss theme, Twilight Theatre, and Dilapidated Dungeon just to name a few. This game is fun and would feel like a great way to get into the metroidvania genre.

plus sybil is hot so i can't complain dawg.

Pseudoregalia is a 3D platformer/Metroidvania hybrid. As a lover of both genres, it was only a matter of time before I checked this out. So, does it live up to the hype?

Yes and no. The game’s greatest strength is the sublime movement. Most of Sybil’s abilities are platforming staples, such as a slide, long jump, spring jump, somersault, and wall kick. The uniqueness comes from how deliberate everything feels. Actions need to be carefully planned and executed to progress. The long jump, for example, is fully committal. Unlike Mario Odyssey, you can’t make minute adjustments during the jump. The wall kick is similar. Only three are allowed per jump and the angle of the kick affects Sybil’s trajectory. When combined with other moves, there’s rarely one specific method for reaching your destination. Mario Sunshine has long been my gold standard for 3D movement, and Pseudoregalia is the closest anything has come to rivaling its fluidity and technicality in my experience. Doubly impressive for something developed in just four months.

That being said, I frequently wasn’t enjoying the experience on a moment-to-moment basis. Part of that is the exccedingly simple combat. I’m not inherently opposed to its inclusion, and fighting thankfully doesn’t halt your momentum, but there’s absolutely no reason to fight anything unless you’re desperate for health, something that checkpoints also restore. Enemies in Castle Sansa are few and far between, none of which remotely pose a threat aside from two mandatory bosses. It’s far easier to dodge enemies in 3D than in 2D, a fact made all the stronger by Sybil’s slide and general platforming prowess. A game like Ori and the Blind Forest, which also had a simple combat system alongside acrobatic platforming, often put enemies in the middle of spike mazes to challenge the player. Killing them not only granted XP, but could be dealt with in different ways beyond the default homing attack, such as reflecting projectiles back at them with Bash. With Sybil, you’re hacking everything with the same three-hit combo until it dies. I also need to mention the subpar feedback. When fighting the first boss, I couldn’t tell if I was damaging him since enemy health is never shown and he wasn’t visibly reacting to any of my swings. After I beat him by surprise, I saw every enemy lacked hit reactions, so I got used to it, but it’s not up to the standard of the platforming feedback. The health upgrades also let you ignore combat even more, so it really feels half-baked.

Not so ignorable is the world design. Individual rooms of the castle utilize Sybil’s abilities fantastically, but backtracking through them to find the next key or upgrade is a slog. I played after a map was added in an update, and I still got lost for hours. It doesn’t display Sybil’s exact position, where locked doors are located, or let you examine areas outside of your current location. I would accept these omissions if so many rooms didn’t feel the same. They are distinct in layout to an extent, but when looking at them together, most rooms are small, boxy corridors devoid of personality. As charming as the low-poly N64 visuals can be, they are too homogeneous to support large-scale exploration like this. A good counterexample is Hazy Maze Cave from Mario 64, which is about half the size of most areas in Castle Sansa. Not only were there wall maps to assist lost players, but also memorable setpieces for specific challenges. You might get lost there for a few minutes at most, whereas the castle can mislead you for a few hours before progress is made. The movement tech is also so advanced that you might be unsure whether you are capable of reaching new rooms yet. The game demands near-total mastery of the controls to reach the end, so discovering you actually can’t yet overcome an obstacle in this labyrinth of a castle is highly deflating.

As a Metroidvania, Pseudoregalia falls flat. As a platformer, however, it is outstanding. If rittzler’s next game has similarly satisfying movement tech, it will be fun. I just want a less dubious structure.