Xenogen

A difficult precision platformer that is very satisfying to complete. You will die a great deal of times, but that's just the nature of the game. It's all about getting that perfect run through a level eventually through patience and perseverance. I thought the normal mode checkpoint system was done well; if you like a crazy challenge, then you might like the hard difficulty. I felt the mechanics and level design were well done for the most part. The character is very "heavy" feeling, and the momentum of running and jumping is definitely unique, but it feels great once you get the hang of it. The visual style and music are great, and I enjoy the clear homage to Super Metroid (stylistically anyway). All in all, I found this to be a fun experience; if you like any of Sylph's other games (especially Garlic and Thrill Penguin), then I would definitely recommend you give this one a try.

This game has the aesthetics and vibe of Metroid for sure, but it's definitely its own thing. The vibes are great, the music fits amazigly, the controls feel fair, and there's a good amount of polish! The mechanics are pretty in-depth and it can take quite a bit of time and attention to detail to master... even if only two buttons and the directional keys are used. The difficulty however, might not be for everyone. The fact that the 'normal mode' checkpoints were only added after the fact in an update says a lot about the intended difficulty. This game is most definitely hard core. I think it's an okay compromise, and it by no means makes it "normal" as it's still very much hard as hell, but the 'normal mode' checkpoint system does feel a bit gimmicky at times, not always creating checkpoints at the same locations, confusing when playing fast paced levels, and at times can be abused. Although some of those concerns might be fixed over time, this game most definitely is not designed to have a normal mode, I think it would be hard to add, but maybe expanding the already existing checkpoint system might be a better solution. Talking about the checkpoint system: I like the concep…

This is a very, very cautious recommend from me at this point after playing 30 mins of the game. Be warned: this game plays nothing like Sylph's previous precision platformer Garlic and is a lot more momentum based with your movement and it controls a lot more finnicky than it as well. When you jump while running, your character will lose some momentum when landing, which I am sure is intentional, but it doesn't feel natural in a game like this, so you will have to retrain your brain in order to progress. The jumping seems very slightly off as well, which might not be intentional, and it caused me to miss my inputs when running close to an edge and trying to jump off of it a bunch of times already. Basically, everything feels slightly unnatural and you are going to really need to practice to understand how to get a grip on the movement. The water physics are also hard to control because the longer you hold the jump button, the higher you will go. Once you let go of the jump button, you are committed to your height, and there are some really tight squeezed between hazards to navigate. At least you can still steer left/right while falling, but the level layouts are brutal to…

This is one of the coolest and most frustrating games I've ever played. It's an extremely precise platformer with a very heavy character. You really commit to jumps unless there is some modifier like water. I completed this on the normal difficulty, which provides some checkpoints in rooms as you progress. I cannot imagine completing this on hardcore difficulty. The checkpointing is fair, though I ran into some bugs with it where the gravity would be the wrong direction; the gravity swap is an intended mechanic, but sometimes the checkpoint would give the wrong gravity for where you respawn. EDIT: the dev fixed this after it was reported! I enjoyed this enough to finish the game twice (for lore reasons, you want to go fast!). I do recommend it, but with a heavy caveat that I was both very entertained and equally enraged by the experience.

Stylish and well paced

A fun and challenging precision platformer with graphics and a presentation influenced by the NES Metroid. This will test your skill and patience. One false move and you'll have to redo the jumps where you left off, so watch your step and measure your jumps wisely. The game may be a bit of a CPU hog on low end computers that use Intel Core i3-i5, but you'll have a smoother experience if you have a more modern computer instead.