Tower Hunter: Erza's Trial

This game is NOT a metroidvania, regardless of what the tags say. Ezra's Trial is a 2.5D action linear roguelite, were every level is a maze with a defined path to the end. You are encouraged to explore to find chest that contain items you can swap with your loadout (one primary weapon, two secondary skills, and a buff grid), and encouraged to kill enemies for crystal drops (spendable XP) and keys for doors (leading to bonus loot). There is no backtracking to previous areas, and no skill-locked paths. You cannot spend your crystals until you hit the rest point mid-mission or post-boss, or if you die and return to town. Every runs starts from the beginning, and you have to beat the same bosses, with static level layouts. Dying (when not on easy mode) removes you weapons and loses some unspent crystals, with the gameplay loop requiring said deaths, as enemies scale faster than you. The combat is extremely clunky, with combo inputs blocking interruptions, leaving you defenceless, and you cannot modify the direction of attacks; light attacks are horizontal, heavy attacks are vertical, and you cannot heavy attack in the air without triggering a special attack (heavy+direction), making…

It's a good game with an uncomplicated plot, medium hardcore. Purely to kill time, nothing more. Fans of this franchise may like it.

A fun enough metroidvania, but it gets to be more than a bit samey.

Unfinished

Is it good? Kinda. Great? Nope. Horrible? Not really. I got it for $2 so it’s hard to complain. First run I got to second to last stage died on boss final stage on standard rogue mode. Leveled up a lot of permanent stats. Maybe harder modes open up after you beat it once? Main character graphics are kinda fine. Stage design and graphics are pretty meh and boxy but they get the job done. Enemy design and behavior is relatively generic. Overall graphic design, menus, fonts and item icons are pretty generic and sub par. Really makes the game feel indie. Character movement and platforming is pretty choppy but you get used to it enough. Combat is mostly OK and probably pushed me to give this games a thumbs up. After my single 2 hour run idk if I’ll come back to it. It’s just not that compelling of a game compared to rogue lite action rpg lite metroidvania lite genres. But how little I paid for it it was worth it. If you want fan service it’s not really here. There’s some costumes and I didn’t unlock all of them but it all looks pretty meh. If you have like $2 to burn in your wallet and this game comes up on sale sure maybe try it. MAYBE. Full price? lol. No.

The platforms are broken because the game unfinished. You get stuck in them, start glitching out and have to quit your run. This WILL happen on EVERY single platform in the game.