Last Vanguard

its hollow knight with guns. liked it a lot

TL;DR: Last Vanguard is one of the best metroidvanias released in the last decade, and it deserves a much bigger audience. I’m genuinely surprised this game isn’t more popular. Last Vanguard delivers pretty much everything you could want from the genre: striking art direction, a compelling story, excellent sound design, rewarding exploration, memorable boss fights, tight controls, and solid performance throughout. The game leans a bit more toward platforming and exploration than pure combat, which I personally enjoyed, but there are still plenty of challenging boss encounters to keep you on your toes. It strikes a great balance between difficulty and fairness, meaning it's demanding enough to feel rewarding without crossing into frustrating territory. If you’re a fan of metroidvanias, or you take satisfaction in supporting ambitious indie developers, this is an easy recommendation and an absolute must-play. PS: You can earn 100% of the achievements in a single playthrough if you start on the hardest difficulty.

This is a pretty unique experience. Most of it really good. The platforming was really tight and responsive. It's one of those games were moving around the map feels satisfying once you get the hang of it. You get access to all of the typical metroidvania movement abilities pretty much from the get go: double jumping, air dashes etc. On top of that you get several unique abilities that let you access parts of the map previously unreachable and a selection of weapons and perks. I think the visuals and the music are really beautiful. The latter reminds of the Kyle Thompson games. Another similarity is the difficulty of the game. There are three difficulty levels to choose from. I went for the middle one and the game felt a lot like Islets, making for a pretty chill experience throughout most of the game. However, while Islets was pretty consistent with its difficulty, Last Vanguard unfortunately is not. There are some bosses in the game that are significantly more difficult to beat. On top of that there are also non-optional platforming sections that could rival some of the zestier White Palace sections in Hollow Knight. The only part that I had a huge problem with was th…

A solid 4/5. The bosses are all pretty fun and the energy system forces you to get in close regularly, a good way to balance having ranged combat and healing. It made me nostalgic for old flash games that tried to create similar experiences, but on a larger scale. It's quite laid back and slow, and the washed out visuals can get stale. but it's part of the art direction and me just playing long sessions. The Good: - Combat is satisfying for the most part. - Art style is charming. - Short and Sweet The Bad: - Weapon balance is a bit lopsided, with later guns making most earlier options redundant, an upgrade system could have helped weaker guns stay relevant. Unless I missed it somehow. - Electric sash probably could have benefitted from a length upgrade.

An average game with a lot of stupid mechanics. Mainly, this game is simply too difficult. Negatives: Contact damage - the person who invented it and the person who implemented it into a metroidvanias should be hanged by the balls. Contact damage is so stupid and tedious. If your sole purpose in existence is to touch your opponent, you shouldn't exist. Boss fights - most bosses are damage sponges, with insane amounts of HP, and with the main character's pathetic weapons, each boss fight takes a very long time. Furthermore, most of them lean towards bullet hell, not metroidvania. The entire screen is filled with projectiles that you have to avoid and look for opportunities to deal damage, so boss fights are a ridiculous dance. Furthermore, some bosses have excessively long and stupid runbacks. Death, which consumes some currency - you can't just learn boss paterns in peace because you lose currency with every attempt. It's an idiotic idea. Hero progression - it's practically nonexistent. The hero is consistently weak. You get new weapons from bosses, but each of them is a pathetic, pea-shooting weapon. There's no way you'll return to the boss after 10 hours and you'll b…

The worst platforming I've ever played, absolutely unplayable