I dunno man, the visuals are very pretty, but as far as sense of progression goes, Ultros is not hitting the kind of pacing I desire out of a Metroidvania. You're either unlocking way too many skills at once to process the worthwhile usage of each one, or you're finding seeds to plant, the advantages of which are not immediately apparent, and instead delayed until you hit the next bit of story progression. It's too much instant gratification, and not enough clarity messily colliding against each other, with mechanics rarely trickled out at a rate that allows you to slowly learn the advantages of each one, or what each type of seed actually does before you're given more of them.
I also take an issue with the game taking away your skills & abilities per every time loop. I don't understand the intent of this. The argument is that it's pretty easy to re-acquire those abilities on repeat runs, but that's still at least 15-20 minutes of backtracking and grinding up enemies in order to reunlock that stuff, plus another 15-20 minutes per every succeeding loop, and... the fact that it's easy only further begs the question, why did it have to be that way at all? Granted, you can find some items that let you lock some of your skills in place, but... at that point, you've already seen them all, and it doesn't feel that rewarding anymore. Meanwhile, there are some abilities that you are always forced to lose no matter what, requiring you to backtrack to a specific room to re-acquire them. It's incredibly unsatisfying. For every major ability I unlock, all I can think is that I'm about 5 minutes away from losing it.
Perhaps Ultros didn't want to be like every other metroidvania out there, but at the same time, what it tries to do different is unnecessarily gimmicky. A more standard progression system where each ability takes effort to get, but is yours to keep couldn't have hurt. None of what's currently here is necessarily stressful, nor is the game all that hard. I think it just overcomplicates itself in ways that seem pointless, abandoning the structure of a classic metroidvania in favor of one that really just doesn't feel as carefully balanced, or intrinsic to explore. Unless you love plant seeds and cryptic lore. Ho, baby.
I also take an issue with the game taking away your skills & abilities per every time loop. I don't understand the intent of this. The argument is that it's pretty easy to re-acquire those abilities on repeat runs, but that's still at least 15-20 minutes of backtracking and grinding up enemies in order to reunlock that stuff, plus another 15-20 minutes per every succeeding loop, and... the fact that it's easy only further begs the question, why did it have to be that way at all? Granted, you can find some items that let you lock some of your skills in place, but... at that point, you've already seen them all, and it doesn't feel that rewarding anymore. Meanwhile, there are some abilities that you are always forced to lose no matter what, requiring you to backtrack to a specific room to re-acquire them. It's incredibly unsatisfying. For every major ability I unlock, all I can think is that I'm about 5 minutes away from losing it.
Perhaps Ultros didn't want to be like every other metroidvania out there, but at the same time, what it tries to do different is unnecessarily gimmicky. A more standard progression system where each ability takes effort to get, but is yours to keep couldn't have hurt. None of what's currently here is necessarily stressful, nor is the game all that hard. I think it just overcomplicates itself in ways that seem pointless, abandoning the structure of a classic metroidvania in favor of one that really just doesn't feel as carefully balanced, or intrinsic to explore. Unless you love plant seeds and cryptic lore. Ho, baby.