BLADECHIMERA

Very fun to play, the gameplay is quite well done, and the Map is fun to explore. I liked the plot, liked the Music, and the game looks very good. It's on the easier side for Metroidvanias (and it's a GREAT thing)!

While I don't review many games, I wanted to highlight that this is a fun, moderately challenging modern title, not too easy but not too difficult. However, what I particularly appreciate is how well it runs on a handheld, even at the lowest TDP setting. I'm getting a consistent 60 FPS at 5W, sometimes dipping as low as 4W, which is excellent for battery life. Highly recommended.

Short and sweet metroidvania. The story is pretty straight forward and predictable and the difficulty level is overall very low with a few exceptions that put it up to normal-ish until you work out the tactics. There are also a few annoying bugs that can catch you off guard, such as a few frames of enemy throwables still hitting you even when they're supposed to be despawned. I also died to the fish boss because I went up the edge and found a secret exit, but was suddenly stuck in a cutscene where the fish jumps overhead. it immediately just ate me and I died despite not even knowing it was coming which felt unfair in the moment. The sprites are pretty, the soundtrack is solid and the warp feature is excellent and saves a lot of backtracking. For a metroidvania it's an easy recommend if you're ok with it being on the shorter side (10-15 hours for 100%)

I'm a huge fan of Team Cherry's mini Metroidvanias but this one is a bit of a miss - it's bland and repetitive, unfortunately.

It's good but it makes the interesting decision to allow free warping anywhere visited and pretty early too. Is it really a metroidvania if you don't have to backtrack? If you can warp to a save point whenever you want? But actually I found this enjoyable. Maybe backtracking isn't a fun mechanic after all and game should just be linear and allow quicksave anywhere.

Overall: 8.5/10 9/10 Loved the modern/futuristic setting. I'm so used to metroidvanias being in dark castles and caves. 8/10 Loved the combat and movement. The synergies between the weapons and resources made it feel mostly like a balancing act, rather than being afraid of running out of hp/mp. The boss battles were awesome and their attacks had great cinematics 7.5/10 the story was good, and the cutscenes were immersive. I liked the extra optional lore disks you could get and dig deeper into the story. The story was good and memorable, and polished beyond what most metroidvanias strive for, which I appreciated. Recommending this to all the metroidvania enthusiasts. Watch out, shiba inus use stealth