itch.io

I also forgot to mention that the default keyboard and mouse controls are really good.  As a keyboard and mouse gamer I feel understood

I forgot to mention that the healing bombs are one of the best healing mechanics I've seen in games.

Here's my review {Play this game it rules!}

This game is so awesome!  There is so much that is amazing here, and playing this game made me  happy. The final game will definetly be an instant purchase for me.Playing this game it is immediately obvious that the developer is a hardcore action game  fan, and I think this game holds up with the other great action games I've played so far.      I have only one complaint, and I'll leave it after my waves and waves of praise.  

My favorite component is the soundtrack, which is just full of pure bangers.  I love how the music transitions from exploration to combat, especially with the spike of more metal as a you get into a combat.   I consistently listen to the ost for this game, and get boosted by it's energy.   it is one of only two soundtracks I've purchased.   

The base mechanics lead to an excellent combat system.   The movement options are really nice.  This has everything I enjoy about hollow knight combat,  but with the addition of a couple exceptionally interesting moves and surprising amount of depth in variants for each verb to elevate this to a new level.  I'll specifically call out two moves which are incredible and make this game standout a lot. 

Dive attack:  Having a diagonal  downwards dive shakes things up a bunch. It takes a bit to get used too, but once you have a good feel for it {and there are some neat platforming sections that help you get used to it}, combat is injected with this incredible sense of motion.   It serves as a great way to leave a pogoing in the air state, either to be incredibly aggressive or as a panicked escape.   It also encourages more horizontal movement in general to complement an aerial strategy which makes combat more exciting.   

Hook-dash:  {a straight hook attack that dashes you through an enemy or obstacle  on contact}.    This move is a beautiful work of genius. It's shade dash's {from hollow knight} cooler sibling. There's quite a bit of skill to utilizing it because a few moments of wind up {to launch the hook}, so it's not an instant escape tool.  Yet the nuances of this move make it loop back around to something that you can use slightly  *before* you're in danger and need to move immediately.     I love the momentum you get from using this, and again like the dive attack it encourages horizontal movement across the battle in a great way.   Then on top of having this your character still has a normal dash that can also go through enemies,   I like how this move takes more skill to use, and is a massive repositioning + evasive maneuver.

 The best part is that the enemy design is fantastic and properly challenges and complements  this move set.   The above mentioned hook maneuver has certain enemies that are immune to it.  Yet this is incredibly intuitive and always 100% obvious from visuals {long lads can not be hooked through,  but any thin section of any enemy can always be hooked through}.   Speaking of well-done visual design,  there are helicopters  in this game that just jaw droopingly genius in how their  design naturally makes them immune to a certain type of attack {pogos}.  Each enemy justifies their existence, and creates a certain type of pressure and challenge. Yet these enemies aren't used in isolation , but together in crazy and hectic battles where you have to manage the diversity and scale of problems from tons of enemies all at once.   There's quite a few severe difficulty spikes, yet you feel awesome constantly and get huge rushes of satisfaction from managing to clear a chaotic arena or tough boss.    The main gameplay here is so strong that I find myself sometimes just opening magenta horizon, doing a random stage, and quickly feeling awesome. 

The visual style here is weird in a really exciting and awesome  way. I specifically love the vibrant use of colors to create the strange setting.  Too many games lack a nice use of color, and that along with some other personal taste has made generally uninterested in the type of setting this game has, but the art style of this game sells me on it. Instead of playing the game despite grotesque things that aren't really my vibe, I was excited to see what strange and twisted thing would be next.  Some of the stages are sweet surprises that really standout too .    

Now for my *one* complaint:  the checkpoint system sucks and fills me with an indescribable rage.   I hate constantly having to redo sections.   It really deflates my enjoyment of the game to have to constantly go through battles again and again to get back to the actual part that I want to be playing after I die.  The design of the system here is so ridiculous that I could often save time by just restarting the whole level and going for a more optimal checkpoint usage.  Sometimes I'll get aggravated with the game  and stop solely due to this, but I always return eventually excited to play.   The boss battles are a highlight for me because you respawn right outside of the beginning of the fight.   If I could play this game in a  cheat mode where  there were checkpoints before every fight I would be very happy.  

Also to not end on negativity, I'll throw in some more lightning round praise

The ranged skills are cool, and there's tons of cool interactions and uses of them that I'm still discovering new stuff for after finishing act 1

The stage select is handy -> especially because you can select difficulty for playing that stage  and also  still have your characters unlocks

The hard post-game difficulty is interesting and well designed {so far it seems like too much for me but I am enjoying exploring it}

The bosses are chaotic and aggressive which makes them much more interesting than 50% of video game bosses.  I can tell that the developer is a fellow GPZ {hollow knight boss} enjoyer.  

Finally this game is  incredibly impressive as a solo passion  project.   From studying game dev I'm intimately aware of so many pain points and have a big appreciation  for the difficulty of creating a game. So by default I have a respect for any solo game, but this holds up to my actual favorites on top of that, so it is even more impressive.  To be honest I idolize the developer a bit, and put them on the same pedestal of all the other monumental developers and games which inspire me to work to get to that level.   [Also it should be noted that they are a cool person who I enjoy talking too, and supporting this game is incredibly emotionally satisfying]

This game is really sweet! It is one of the best game jam arcade action games I've played.  I enjoyed this game so much that I continued to play (for a solid 15-20 min) it until I got good enough to beat the 60s

I love the feel on this game,  the different spells/modifiers are awesome.  The movement is also incredibly tight [I love mouse controls so much], and the dash is perfect for the frantic feel of the game [The cooldown does a great job of making it more of an escape tool for when you are panicking then something to consistently use which I think is great for the game].     

There are two critical things missing in this game:    an indicator of when you get your dash back and a victory screen for when you survive for 60s [I was so happy to get there, but then the game kept going and 5 seconds later I was defeated :(]  EDIT: I replayed and there is a victory screen, but it is pretty unintuitive that you don't win immediately after surviving the timer, but instead have to clear the room.   When I replayed to reach this screen I noticed the dash timer is much shorter than I was playing around,   making it less of an only use in emergencies than i thought, and allowing you to use it pretty well to consistently kite and weave through enemies.  I think the dash cooldown should be a bit longer

How I played the game [I really enjoyed this game, but I'm pretty sure the design of the game caused me to play in ways that were outside the intended experience so I think this is worth sharing] :     I love the way typing letters looks on your sword, but it's a shame that I pretty much ignored the sword in favor of the spells, which seem like the only real way to play.   Furthermore, fire is clearly the best spell. So my style of playing involved always typing fire and throwing fireballs at enemies [it should be noted that the skill element to fire where you can try to get multiple enemies with it is a really enjoyable part of the game.  The reason I choose fire over beam is that the spread on the fire makes it much more consistent for hitting multiple targets, where the beam takes much more effort to line up given the frantic nature of the game].   

I thought i would be naturally good at this game because I'm a really fast typist, but I was really happy to find out that the core of the game is more focused on the action, with just the typing being the controls for priming each fire shot.    The real genius part of this game is that even single spell word has at least 1 letter on the right side of the keyboard which is a contradiction for the right hand which also needs to control the mouse.   This led to constantly taking my hand off the mouse and back to type in the my needed 'i's, which was interesting because that caused me to sacrifice my movement for those moments.    When things were really hectic I occasionally left my right hand on the mouse and had to do a cool bit of multitasking with movement and typing with just the left hand [which doing it this way has to move between the left and right side of the keyboard].  The unique control scheme of this game contributed a lot to the incredibly fun gameplay and hectic feeling.   

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

This one was my favourite game i have tried in the jam.  Amazing feel, super fun, solid visuals and audio.   Just AMAZING