Maseylia : Echoes of the Past

Pretty solid 3D Metroidvania especially for someone's first game as the platforming and exploration are enjoyable. It's especially fun with the ice sliding or chaining movement abilities together for gauntlets. Combat's the weakest point of the game as it works but there's nothing special about it. Sometimes there's a bit of jank in seeing where to go or certain textures not showing up. Took a bit over six hours to finish (spent another hour checking for missed bonuses) and a repeat for the speedrunner achievement was about three hours (with the achievement requiring under five hours) so it's a good short to medium sized game.

I heard about Maseylia via the developer on Bluesky, and downloaded the demo. I was charmed by the art, the story, and the nostalgic feel of the gameplay for someone whose childhood gaming was done primarily from the mid-90s into the 00s. Naturally, I purchased the full game when it was released. I'm terrible at games that require timing, accuracy, and coordination, but it's rewarding to triumph over a portion that has thwarted me time and again (I'm looking at you, field of ice floes you have to navigate after you get the grapple). Unlocking new parts of the story is also exciting. I think my only minor gripe is that it's sometimes difficult to determine where I'm supposed to go. After reading some other reviews, I'm inclined to agree that stronger contrast in shading would be helpful to alleviate this. Overall, I'm enjoying it. It's a challenging, aesthetically pleasing game with an interesting premise in a style that takes me back to my childhood.

Thoroughly enjoyable game. The design is well thought out and executed excellently. The length is agreeable, the overall diversity of enemies and abilities is fair for the scope of the game, and the visual cues and asset tweak+reuse is consistent and sensible. Art style is visually pleasing, music sets a nice atmosphere, and the discoverable world lore was enough to paint a picture but not bog down the experience. I came across a few bugs and some aspects that definitely need polished, but nothing that I wasn't able to work out without getting progress locked (although that situation could have arisen once or twice if I made a few different choices). I think this one could have used a bit more playtesting just to iron out the remaining few kinks but overall the small QA/Playtesting group did a good job with this game. I'd be happy to further elaborate to the devs the few instances I came across with issues with much more detailed specifics in a private chat/message but to give a small overview the bugs I found were things like that when you kill an enemy or destroy a money pile, the currency is set on a path that will always reach the player from the floor up (up through the playe…

gud game

Moderately fun, until it wasn't. I hit a wall with abilities and patience—as is often the case with these types of games—and got weary of the world to the point of not wanting to return to it.

Quality 3D platformer, a little rough around the edges but still a fun game to play through