>>718848775
I can see the effort put into making this game with all the high quality production value. This is a good game and I SHOULD like it. But this game is just NOT FUN to play through.
The game was only fun before the 6 hours mark, because THERE WAS A SENSE OF PROGRESSION. So, Act 1 is pretty linear with a clear objective location, but still got a bunch of branching off paths for platforming challenges & loots. There’s like 6 main areas that you go through with many interesting story cutscenes and traversal abilities to unlock. All within 6 hours. It’s a very compact and satisfying experience.
Act 2 however, is the complete opposite of that. They told you the objective is to visit 2 certain areas (unmarked), but you’re free to explore wherever you want, no guided direction, no handholding at all. But the problem is, the world is HUGE. Each new area is MASSIVE and multi-layered, connected by dozens of doors spread around the area. The biggest problem with that is the exploration feels unrewarding with NO sense of progression at all. Traversing areas is a huge chore due to how massive they are with countless doors that lead to other massive areas. Enemy variety is very lacking and rewards for doing thorough exploration and platforming challenges are mostly trash like literally useless stones (apparently a collectible?), currency and piece of character lore (not even area lore). Oh, and there’s no story or even a dialogue AT ALL. Just mindlessly, aimlessly walking and fighting mobs.
There’s nothing special about the combat & metroidvania traversal abilities. All basic staple. There are other negatives like awful Pacman control, frustrating Pacman mini-games with no checkpoints and not-so-useful checkpoints that don’t even restore your healing items all over the world, but I won’t talk about them. I feel like the core exploration of this game is just too much of a slog that nothing could possibly fix it.
