Overall, Sephonie is a delightful experience and feels unique and well-crafted. I think it falls short somewhat, due to issues with the movement mechanics and some clunky-ish dialogue. But even in those areas, I would say it's more that that they're good but not great, especially in comparison to other games in a similar category.
Before I expand on the flaws, I wanna just mention the really good bits. The enviroments are wonderful and really sell the setting (along with the music, which is fantastic), and the plot is heartfelt, thoughtful, and has some cool ideas. I especially loved all the creatures they came up with for you to link with - I found myself wishing a lot of them were real, haha. And despite the issues with the mechanics, the level design nonetheless feels tight and focused, and the linking puzzles were always fun without being too difficult.
As for my criticisms - my issues with the dialogue were really just that a lot of it felt awkward or clumsy (and not like, in an intentional way) - just in need of refining. I feel I should emphasize that it's still much better than most games - depsite the flaws, I found myself really invested in the characters and rarely felt the urge to just skip through any of the text. But it definitely felt a bit lackluster.
As for the control issues, this one is a little more nuanced. The wallrunning is a great idea in theory and in practice it mostly works. But I find that the natural-looking environments really harm readability and navigability. It's hard to figure out what angle to hit a curved wall, and its hard to tell when the curved wall will get "too curved" and you'll fall off, and if the wall is curving away from the camera, its hard to even see where you're wallrunning to. This problem extends a little to platforming in general - sometimes the collision is matched to oddly shaped walls or platforms and they just feel unnecessarily funky to move around on. I also had some control issues with the dash not working as expect but at this point I'm probably just rambling lol. That said, none of these were a huge issue for beating the main game, just because they never require you to be too perfect to get past anything. I definitely noticed it but I could live with it. It did get to be a real problem after I beat the game and went for the bonus challenges, though - I still did a lot of them, but others I completely gave up on just because of the control issues I was having. Which is not a huge deal since they're optional, its just unfortunate because the controls are interesting enough that I really want to fall in love with them.
So, bottom line - I strongly recommend playing it unless you're super picky about smooth movement or dialogue writing. Melos and Marina have done a great job crafting a beautiful little game, despite its flaws.
Before I expand on the flaws, I wanna just mention the really good bits. The enviroments are wonderful and really sell the setting (along with the music, which is fantastic), and the plot is heartfelt, thoughtful, and has some cool ideas. I especially loved all the creatures they came up with for you to link with - I found myself wishing a lot of them were real, haha. And despite the issues with the mechanics, the level design nonetheless feels tight and focused, and the linking puzzles were always fun without being too difficult.
As for my criticisms - my issues with the dialogue were really just that a lot of it felt awkward or clumsy (and not like, in an intentional way) - just in need of refining. I feel I should emphasize that it's still much better than most games - depsite the flaws, I found myself really invested in the characters and rarely felt the urge to just skip through any of the text. But it definitely felt a bit lackluster.
As for the control issues, this one is a little more nuanced. The wallrunning is a great idea in theory and in practice it mostly works. But I find that the natural-looking environments really harm readability and navigability. It's hard to figure out what angle to hit a curved wall, and its hard to tell when the curved wall will get "too curved" and you'll fall off, and if the wall is curving away from the camera, its hard to even see where you're wallrunning to. This problem extends a little to platforming in general - sometimes the collision is matched to oddly shaped walls or platforms and they just feel unnecessarily funky to move around on. I also had some control issues with the dash not working as expect but at this point I'm probably just rambling lol. That said, none of these were a huge issue for beating the main game, just because they never require you to be too perfect to get past anything. I definitely noticed it but I could live with it. It did get to be a real problem after I beat the game and went for the bonus challenges, though - I still did a lot of them, but others I completely gave up on just because of the control issues I was having. Which is not a huge deal since they're optional, its just unfortunate because the controls are interesting enough that I really want to fall in love with them.
So, bottom line - I strongly recommend playing it unless you're super picky about smooth movement or dialogue writing. Melos and Marina have done a great job crafting a beautiful little game, despite its flaws.