ok crazy thought here but: i think metroidvanias with a combat focus as granular as this one should be about one-half to one-third the size of this one - or they need to be balanced much more carefully. i keep running into regular degular enemies who can teleport across the room, thus allowing me to get in maybe two hits before they disappear, and who have health bars that are way too big, and who chase me across the screen so i have to stop exploring in order to get them out of the way.

perhaps this is a 'get gud' kind of problem! but it's extremely annoying and disincentivizes backtracking or exploration or thoughtful puzzle solving, which the game also wants me to do. so like, what's the end goal here?

the core issue is that, while the game is fun, it doesn't feel like it has a point of view. i can really feel the market calculation here - like, storytelling tropes from the mcu and anime? check! counter-heavy combat - and getting-stalked-by-enemies areas - along the lines of metroid dread? check! exploration/combat/save rhythm from souls? check! time manipulation because that's the prince of persia Thing? check! it just feels vaguely soulless and committee-designed. even when i enjoy the way it plays - which is often! - i just don't feel particularly engaged with it.

this is reading very pessimistic. there are things i like about this game! i think it does a good job of selling mount qaf as a coherent space - comparatively, metroid dread did not do this with planet zdr even a little bit. i like the concept of the combat-focused vania and there are lots of good ideas there. some of the cutscene direction is cool and fun. but it all feels very... focus-tested.