This was a really charming Metroidvania with tons of great ideas, even if slightly flawed. To start you will immediately see just how beautiful the game is, it is full of vibrant colors and unique locations that make just seeing the game instantly fill you with a sense of adventure and fun. Quickly the game introduces the main mechanic that creates the metroidvania gating system: animal transformations. This is by far my favorite part of the game, each of the 6 forms feel unique with their own pros and cons, and each have wonderful animations to boot. While some like the Frog or Lion are much more useful on balance each form has their time to shine.
The Metroidvania part of the game really isn't too in depth, a lot of the time it plays just like a linear 2D action platformer. You aren't often lost on where to go next, but you do get to open sections where you have to problem solve to unlock the boss. The boss fights are a treat, they are all really fleshed out multistage affairs that keep you on your toes. The combat is pretty basic, but there is a light RPG gear system that is a bit underused but it isn't bad, I liked that it gave you options but didn't really require you to spend tons of time mixing and matching.
Ultimately I really enjoyed this game but the back third was a bit of a mess so I had to dock it a bit, the difficulty just spikes out of nowhere which leads to quite a bit of frustration and it gets a bit obtuse. As you near the end of the game it also doesn't tell you some collectables aren't actually optional, you needed them all along. If the game was balanced slightly better and was a bit more forthcoming with information in the final stretch this would have been a really amazing game, but even as is I had a lot of fun with it.
The Metroidvania part of the game really isn't too in depth, a lot of the time it plays just like a linear 2D action platformer. You aren't often lost on where to go next, but you do get to open sections where you have to problem solve to unlock the boss. The boss fights are a treat, they are all really fleshed out multistage affairs that keep you on your toes. The combat is pretty basic, but there is a light RPG gear system that is a bit underused but it isn't bad, I liked that it gave you options but didn't really require you to spend tons of time mixing and matching.
Ultimately I really enjoyed this game but the back third was a bit of a mess so I had to dock it a bit, the difficulty just spikes out of nowhere which leads to quite a bit of frustration and it gets a bit obtuse. As you near the end of the game it also doesn't tell you some collectables aren't actually optional, you needed them all along. If the game was balanced slightly better and was a bit more forthcoming with information in the final stretch this would have been a really amazing game, but even as is I had a lot of fun with it.