Excellent platformer, good metroidvania, meh combat

They really improved the excellent platformer of the first game and gave us a huge map to play around with ori's movement.

And, i know they want to innovate on the first game by fleshing out combat, but this ain't it. The game gave us plenty of weapons to choose from, and i only use the hammer for melee and bow/spear for ranged. I know they gave us options to choose our playstyle but the enemy design doesn't push us to be creative with the weapons. Also the upgrade slots, they need to think it through again.

I'm gonna mark this as "recommended" just because of the gunplay. It feels so freakin' good.

The game is really good for the first two out of four levels. It's manageable, you can pick any build you want, and it feels satisfying when you finished a stage. ( A level consists of several stages )

There are classes and many guns to choose from, and it's a bliss. Almost every gun is interesting and fun to use. It's my type of thing, where it can make me think, "I wonder what i can do with that?". Even you're underpowered in a stage, you still can make it with pure movement and aim skills, and it feels very satisfying to pull it off.

But, the last two levels are...not good. Enemies are becoming more annoying than challenging, bosses starting to feel like gimmicky, and not picking the right build is more punishing than anything else.

Only some builds work, and you have to prepare it from the first time you entered the first level. It gave you an illusion of free choice. It's a major problem for games like this, since you want to overcome the enemies by simply being good at it and having an at least decent build, but those are being negated by enemies that can one shot you, if you make only one mistake.

But, it's a roguelite though, not a roguelike. It's in the same vein as Hades, where you can unlock upgrades and can make things easier for the next run. I haven't unlocked all of the upgrades yet, but i feel like that won't help the problems i mentioned earlier.

Still, a good output from an indie studio. They clearly care and passionate about this game, and i hope they can fix things to make it even better. Masterpiece, even.

Note : this game is so much better than Gunfire Reborn though. It shares similarities but Gunfire Reborn sucks