Alruna and the Necro-Industrialists

Excellent "metroidvania" that is light on story/guidance and really requires just playing around with exploration to find ways to continue. The short runtime (even to get the "true ending") makes this an easy recommendation.

It's decent little metroidvania, but 'focus on sequence-breaking' is a very big exaggeration. While this is not a bad thing in itself, it is main marketing point of the title. So I want to take my shots at it: - game does not acknowledge sequence-breaking - Act itself mostly boils down to knowing where are the invisible walls you can slide into - Some of these are one-way - probably to disallow sequence-breaking that softlocks the game, lol. - Game is not designed around all of them: yes, you can skip the weapon. And likely even beat the game without it. Don't know why would you want to, as, again, there is neither an aknowledgement, nor any sort of meta message about it. - These "sequence breaks" are nothing more than somewhat hidden ability to choose the order of areas you will visit, which in itself is kind of a norm for the genre. Also, there are multiple ([spoiler]2[/spoiler]) endings. Completing one locks your save file, forcing you to either beat the game again or open youtube. I can't help but think that this was made so that players try this "sequence-break" mechanic, but... eh.

A really fun MV that had me scratching my head at times. It took me a couple of restarts to get into it. I initially thought this looked and plaued like a highschool project, but the more you unlock the more it becomes great. The mechanics are really solid! I particularly like how healing and return home was a mechanic of the seeds that you needed to figure out. The writing is very cringe. I assume its deliberate?? But it kinda fits nymphs fighting mecha undead.

Just like most of the other negative reviews, it's the controls that I can't stand in this game. I used an XBONEX controller and keyboard and mouse both to try and find a way to make the controls at least passable, and couldn't do so. You're too tall for some jumps and don't have headroom. You have no I-frames and become stunlocked when you get hit, so you just wind up dying whenever an enemy moves over you, even if you started with full health. It just feels clunky. Pretty good music though!

I’ve played the two games of the series in a reverse order, with the second one first, but they both maintain the same look and share the mechanics so you will fit right in regardless of which one you pick first. As a matter of fact, you can pretty much copy-paste your experience between the two, while the main difference is the storyline and conversations you have with some occasional characters. The dryad, Alruna, starts with a few abilities already unlocked, but the game introduces them gradually so you don’t feel overwhelmed. Usually, a move is explained the first time you encounter an obstacle that requires it. Alongside a standard jump, you can perform a high jump by crouching for a few seconds to charge it, and slide underneath tight openings. The shooter from the second game is replaced with a whip, but although range is still small, damage is quite nice and can take out enemies with a few hits. Most simply patrol back and forth while firing different projectiles. In many cases, it’s easier to ignore them entirely since they don’t drop anything useful when defeated, apart from the occasional heart when your health is running low. Enemies respawn whenever you move betwee…

As a metroidvania, this game does its job actually very good (bosses, shortcuts and new routes becoming accessible with skills acquired later on). It also offers enough quality of life support like fast travel and near-boss-checkpoints. Why a negative review then? Well, the gameplay did it for me. It is not constantly buggy, but in conjunction with some possibly weird design choices, at some point it became hard to tell. I do not want to fight the controls. (I should probably mention here that I played with a gamepad.) Maybe some retro-affine players prefer the close-quarter hardships the game gives as part of its design. Funnily enough, there appear to be some options to circumvent some of the trouble. But again, at some point I could not tell anymore if things were simply overlooked or intentionally possible. I finished the game nevertheless, so I do not think it is awful. Just leaving a bad taste that ruined some of the fun. Hint: Check for the ending save lock to avoid some late-game disappointment.