Ravva and the Phantom Library

[h1]A pleasant little hoot[/h1] This and Ravva 1 (Cyclops Curse) are perfectly fine little afternoon distractions that feel a little held back by...I don't want to say a lack of ambition, but I feel like they could be just a little more than they are, even given how Galope Studios is just a 2 person team. They're short in a way that leaves you wanting more - almost too much so, and you can see the potential that's there if they just leaned into it. Unfortunately, it just doesn't seem like there's enough there to set it apart from other 'retro revivals' to give it enough attention and love to afford that? The games are fun, simple, short and sweet and don't last long enough to feel repetitive or make their problems feel worse than they are. The music is solid, the NES-styled art is colorful, contrasts well and is and charming, and I like that each of the different familiars sorta have their own little personality, even if it's subtle. I think it'd be worth leaning into that more in the future - you have decently cute character designs, lean into that and maybe even give them dialogue. The main problem with Ravva as a series so far is arguably the yellow bat familiar and what it do…

Sweet little game!!

Very cute and fun game. It’s a nice, compact game with good art and a lot of polish. I had a lot of fun doing all the challenges and getting all the achievements (though I still can't find that programmer with the cats...) I do have a couple criticisms though: 1. Playing on the steam deck feels great, the style of game works really well (plus the art looks great on an OLED screen). But the default control scheme isn’t compatible with that config window that shows up before you start the game and I had to rejig my settings a bit to hit “play” 2. Cycling through the summons can be a little tedious. I’m not sure how you would fix this and retain the retro feel though, but I wouldn’t mind if there were button shortcuts or a radial menu or something. 3. The music is well-written (I noticed the main motif in all the songs!! I see you!!) but the instrumentation got repetitive. Though that might just be me. Other than that, it’s a great time and I appreciate the dev is turning it into a series with frequent entries. Definitely looking forward to the next one

Good & colorful 8-bit style platformer. The difficulty level is not too high, making this a nice entry level retro game.

Everything had an amazing improvement since the first Ravva game. This is a very solid game with nice visuals and responsive gameplay. We need more games like these.

Very cute and fun 2D platformer. Has some collectible aspects and a speedrun mode, but I haven't tried that one yet. Good choice for a few hours of fun.