I played the demo for this a long time ago, and I wasn't fully in on the game immediately, I only got it because a friend got a humble bundle with the game was kind enough to gift me this game from the bundle. I'm very glad that happened, because I ended up really liking this game!
Graphically it's some pretty solid pixel art, the art design isn't anything special though, not particularly memorable character/enemy designs or map design. The music is the same, nothing stood out as something I can super remember or think back on fondly. None of it is bad by any means, just nothing super special.
Gameplay wise it's a fun metroidvania! The characters feel good to control, each unique aspect of the (spoilers) 5 characters is useful and have a decent amount of use throughout the game. The bosses are alright, but aside from the final boss aren't particularly memorable or the most interesting things ever. There is a pretty great amount of variety in enemies too, this isn't the longest game ever and each area is pretty full of new types of enemies to fight. None of them are particularly annoying either, which is nice to say. The secrets are satisfying to find, and 100%ing the game was overall a very fun time. It felt satisfying to clean up the map and even do the side modes. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to get all the achievements but after starting the Black Knight mode and eventually the Monster mode they ended up being a lot more fun than I was expecting and I beat them both back to back after beating the main game! They're very short and allow for a lot of skipping parts of the game and zooming through that I had a lot of fun abusing the mechanics and speedrunning the map again. I do wish the monster mode had a more consistent way of healing though, I found myself just backtracking through the world finding candles/health upgrades for the final boss since it was killing me in like 3 hits. Having to do that and also die whenever I took too much damage and redo sections without getting as much damage because there's no real way to heal or respawn healing candles was frustrating.
There are a few tiny QoL things that bother me a little bit, they fix some of them as the game goes on which is a bit appreciated, but also makes me question why they made the start the way it is in the first place. The big immediate annoying thing, is that each character has a unique ability and those abilities mainly are for traversing specific parts of the map, and for the first hour or two before you get an item, you have to return to a bonfire to swap characters. It was very frustrating exploring as my current favorite character and finding like a wall of blue vines I can't cut down and having to backtrack all the way back to a campfire to swap characters. I don't know why they needed an item to fix this, just let us swap between characters immediately, it wouldn't break the game or anything all it does is cut back from annoying and frustrating backtracking. Speaking of backtracking, while I do find the map cleverly designed with lots of shortcuts to make cleaning up 100% of the map I really wish there was some sort of item that insta teleported you back to your last campfire or your last elevator you used. That's less of an issue, though just another little thing I would have liked to see. I also wish you didn't need to die to purchase upgrades, or eventually find specific statues to buy upgrades. Being able to just buy upgrades at campfires or something would be nice, and also it's weird you have to buy something before it tells you what it does. Obviously you can look up what each item does (which is what I did) but it would have been nice to just get a descrption for each item and also be told if it was a permanent upgrade or just for this life upgrade.
I was surprised at this one, found myself having a great time 100%ing it and running through it. I don't think it's particularly special, especially in the context of the genre, but not everything has to be! Some games can just be solid entries in a genre without rocking the boat much.
Graphically it's some pretty solid pixel art, the art design isn't anything special though, not particularly memorable character/enemy designs or map design. The music is the same, nothing stood out as something I can super remember or think back on fondly. None of it is bad by any means, just nothing super special.
Gameplay wise it's a fun metroidvania! The characters feel good to control, each unique aspect of the (spoilers) 5 characters is useful and have a decent amount of use throughout the game. The bosses are alright, but aside from the final boss aren't particularly memorable or the most interesting things ever. There is a pretty great amount of variety in enemies too, this isn't the longest game ever and each area is pretty full of new types of enemies to fight. None of them are particularly annoying either, which is nice to say. The secrets are satisfying to find, and 100%ing the game was overall a very fun time. It felt satisfying to clean up the map and even do the side modes. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to get all the achievements but after starting the Black Knight mode and eventually the Monster mode they ended up being a lot more fun than I was expecting and I beat them both back to back after beating the main game! They're very short and allow for a lot of skipping parts of the game and zooming through that I had a lot of fun abusing the mechanics and speedrunning the map again. I do wish the monster mode had a more consistent way of healing though, I found myself just backtracking through the world finding candles/health upgrades for the final boss since it was killing me in like 3 hits. Having to do that and also die whenever I took too much damage and redo sections without getting as much damage because there's no real way to heal or respawn healing candles was frustrating.
There are a few tiny QoL things that bother me a little bit, they fix some of them as the game goes on which is a bit appreciated, but also makes me question why they made the start the way it is in the first place. The big immediate annoying thing, is that each character has a unique ability and those abilities mainly are for traversing specific parts of the map, and for the first hour or two before you get an item, you have to return to a bonfire to swap characters. It was very frustrating exploring as my current favorite character and finding like a wall of blue vines I can't cut down and having to backtrack all the way back to a campfire to swap characters. I don't know why they needed an item to fix this, just let us swap between characters immediately, it wouldn't break the game or anything all it does is cut back from annoying and frustrating backtracking. Speaking of backtracking, while I do find the map cleverly designed with lots of shortcuts to make cleaning up 100% of the map I really wish there was some sort of item that insta teleported you back to your last campfire or your last elevator you used. That's less of an issue, though just another little thing I would have liked to see. I also wish you didn't need to die to purchase upgrades, or eventually find specific statues to buy upgrades. Being able to just buy upgrades at campfires or something would be nice, and also it's weird you have to buy something before it tells you what it does. Obviously you can look up what each item does (which is what I did) but it would have been nice to just get a descrption for each item and also be told if it was a permanent upgrade or just for this life upgrade.
I was surprised at this one, found myself having a great time 100%ing it and running through it. I don't think it's particularly special, especially in the context of the genre, but not everything has to be! Some games can just be solid entries in a genre without rocking the boat much.