Medusa

This is a game I found when the dev advertised it on the /r/metroidvania sub, and the best thing I can say about is that it was only $3. But this might be the worst Metroidvania I've ever played to completion. It feels a lot like it was taken straight off of the NES, and not in a particularly good way. Highlights include an actually fairly good chiptune soundtrack and decent level design with a labyrinthine layout of branching passages. The first few upgrades are also fairly promising, with unique and fairly thematic things like transforming into a snake, summoning a chariot (that can... eat carrot doors??? among other uses), and a gaze that turns enemies to stone. But the fifth upgrade being just... a jetpack, with no explanation, is fairly weak (we couldn't get Hermes' flying sandals or Icarus's Wings instead?). Still, there's some clever usages of abilities to solve problems, like one reward that requires you to summon several enemies, turn them to stone, stack them on top of one another in a totem pole, and then scale them as a snake to get into a crevice near the ceiling. And the bad is almost everything else. In contrast to the good music, the sound effects are jarring bleeps…

At first blush this one might call to mind the cynical, fly-by-night detritus that bored teenagers "ironically" gift to each other in this neck of the digital woods, but those willing to give it a chance will find that, despite some issues, the developer has put some earnest effort into Medusa. It's the sort of curiosity you might have encountered back in the XBLA Indie days, put together with limited resources and experience but seasoned with potential and heart; not a classic, let alone a "gateway" game for the genre-skeptical, but metroidvania aficionados willing to put up with some annoyances along the way likely won't regret having tossed the creator a buck or three. In hopes of offering a general overview without spoiling too much, the story is as spartan as the presentation, enemy behaviors are very basic (albeit sometimes annoying to deal with, though as your toolkit expands this abates to a degree. Also note that there are no boss fights to speak of), and while movement and jumping feel solid with a little practice, you character's unusually tall sprite can make dodging attacks and platforming near ceilings feel awkward (again, though, you do eventually find ways to mitig…

Medusa is one of the few metroidvanias released after oct 2022 that has fair pricing for norwegians. unfortunately this is already an extremely cheap game so this only means a difference of around 10 kroners. Still, its the thought that counts, this dev listens... As for the game itself, its better and longer than you expect and longer. I bought it back in christmas 2022 and its the most indie of all the games I bought at the time, the closest 3 were all refunded for being of very poor quality, but not this game! This is good! It has modern QoL features, an intuitive and well made map. Having said that, it does have a number of faults: - The midgame is a slog - the purple biome has a number of frustrating bugs, especially the largest room - the chariot item is prone to causing serious glitches and softlocks - aesthetically, the biomes have no logical consistency between each other - many of the enemies in each biome don't aesthetically fit there edit: correct playtime is 12 hours, not 18, i was afk for 6 hours.

Positives -Fun -Combat is decent -Some good puzzles -Creative upgrades, one in particular is really fun -Big world map to explore -Good variety of biomes -Fair price for what's on offer, even better when on sale -Runs great, no crashes -Medusa is thicc Negatives -Traversal can be a pain -Annoying to have to use the menu so much to switch between abilities -Too many abilities, a lot are useless -Level design is not great

This is almost a yes. Decent metroidvania in many ways, with some points of creativity I really liked, such as being able to use items in unexpected ways (summoning the chariot just to stand on it, summoning hoplites and stoning them to build a wall that you can climb up as the snake, tapping the jetpack to go further with it, etc.) and the generally crude-but-charming art. The movement feels a little awkward at first but once you pick up the snake shift and (eventually) the jetpack things start to feel more intuitive and more fun. Things that pull it to a no: - The backtracking isn't fatal but it was a big negative. If the teleport relic were available very early on that would solve this 100%. - Slightly faster movement speed would have been nice, especially with all the backtracking. - Related QoL, needing to manually restore magic and HP by breaking jars endlessly... especially silly to have to waste 5 minutes doing this when you're right next to a portal anyway. Save points and portals should just restore magic and HP, don't waste my time so blatantly. Nothing in the game offers this sort of restoration. - Fatal softlocks when movement bugs result in getting stuck s…

[i]---see where this game landed on my Metroidvania tier list beneath this review!---[/i] Can't recommend this one to very many. Its very basic, but has some QOL features like a map and things that a bunch of other low budget MVs lack. It's perfectly playable, and if other videogames didn't exist, I would happily play through this whole thing. ..But they do, and It's difficult to find a reason to be spending the seconds we have on this earth on this one. I didn't play for too long, the environment didn't really hook me in for whatever reason. I think a bit more cohesiveness with the environment/improved production.. [i]something[/i] to heighten the immersion may have been all i needed to get invested in a world, rather than feel like I'm playing someone's school project. It really is otherwise fine. ===================== [b]My Metroidvania Tier List[/b] [i] (excluding Metroid & Castlevania titles)[/i] ===================== [b]S Tier:[/b] Aeterna Noctis | Astalon: Tears of the Earth | Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom | Hollow Knight | Cathedral | [b]A Tier:[/b] Doomblade | Afterimage | Elderand | Ori and the Will of the Wisps | Environmental Station Alpha | Ender Li…