It's always a bit funny trying to gauge when is the best time to review a rogue-lite as difference between "getting an ending" and "seeing most of the content" can be a hundred hours. So I'm calling it for a review now that I've completed a full run, seen the "credit roll," and sunk in at least 10 hours. I think it's safe enough to say that I'm well acquainted with the full structure of the game. Content-wise — and this is a big credit — I feel like I've barely scratched the surface.

Starting from the top, this game has excellent presentation, with a suprising number of accessibility options as well. It suggests a controller, but I found it played just fine on a keyboard+mouse as well.

The pixel art style is gorgeous. I can't say all of the designs were inherently appealing to me (just a particular hangup with me and alchemists), but the love and care that went into every sprite, animation, and landscape grabbed me anyway. The character animations have this really fun fluidity to them that mixes some procedural animation elements (like a flowing scarf) to great effect. And some of the parallaxed backgrounds are just phenomenal.

That fluidity carries into the gameplay as well. While not quite as clean as Hollow Knight, there's still a great sense of momentum and flow once it clicks (which was almost immediately for me, but a big part of that could be that I just played Hollow Knight). What's really wild to me, however, is just how many different weapons are in the game. Yes, some are technical small variations on a theme, but those variations create very significant playstyle differences. Some combinations of equipment obviously synergize better than others but I was having fun with so many of them... which is good because if you're playing on core mode you will often have to make due with what you have. Especially as you unlock more and the pool widens.

Now the part that really tends to seal the deal for me with rogue-lites is the progression, and I'm glad to say this one nails the balance of risk-reward, long-term graduation, and that moment-to-moment drip feed of dopamine. Enemies explode satisfyingly into useful resources, there's speedrun and no-hit bonuses on most levels (which I compulsively aim for), and very rarely did I hit a dry run (i.e. no long terms unlocks or progress at all). Which is quite impressive for me as I play rogue-lites very recklessly.

Any gripes I have with it are mainly nit-picks. The automatic ledge/wall grabbing can be a bit too eager for how I play and I sometimes end up in weird juggles when I'm trying to descend. Actually, in general I really could go for a quick descend option. Maybe I just didn't find it, but the one thing that consistently slowed down the game for me was anytime there were two or more thin platforms I had to jump down from to progress.

Other than that, I'll at least warn that you will have a pretty difficult time early on if 2D platforming isn't your thing. Even the basic layouts have some jumps that I know would filter newcomers even if there is no penalty for missing them. (I made a platformer in college and the more game tests I ran, the more I realized that the infamous Cuphead moment is not as rare as one would hope)

But that's not a negative for me one bit. This game slaps. I don't even own the DLC yet and I still anticipate putting another couple dozen hours into this over the next few weeks. Highly, highly recommend to fellow rouge-lite fans.