Simona's Requiem

Bought this on the recent Spring sale and I got a fair amount of game for the price I paid. It's a rather short and straightforward Metroidvania, clearly paying homage to the classic Castlevania series. Even though it is non-linear, the areas themselves for the most part are pretty straight forward, with only a few branching paths leading mostly to a couple of collectibles or alternate exits. There is a map but to be honest there might just as well not be one because it only shows areas but never where you are within an area. Game speed is pretty slow compared to other, similar games I've played which is not neccessarily a bad thing but here I think it could get some boost but your movement speed is incredibly slow and even with the dash upgrade it doesn't become much faster. Speaking of dash upgrade, I got this pretty late in the game due to exploring different areas first but it should probably be the first upgrade you receive, even before the double jump. Just to make the movement a little bit faster. There's also a teleport system that let's you move around a couple of areas, but not all of them. Difficulty wise it's clearly on the easier side with most enemies being non-…

If you are looking for a more chilled out version of Castlevania, look no further. I enjoyed my time with it, but I can't see myself playing it more than once. However, it was fun and polished enough to give a recommend. My only real issue with it was the incredibly slow movement of the character, but that gets fixed once you find an item. The graphics and sound design were both quite nice and the dialogue was kinda goofy but never crossed over into cringe territory. I didn't beat it deathless on my first try, but I was able to fly through the game without much trouble. I beat the game in 1 hour and 45 mins and I only missed 2 secret items, so if I wanted to get 100% achievements, I imagine it would probably take another 20 - 30 minutes. I don't really see myself wanting to play this a second time, but I am glad I checked it out.

This is a decent mini Metroidvania, that will keep you entertained for a couple hours. It's not the smoothest experience but tolerable for how short the game is. There are definitely better games out there, but if you get it on sale it's a good experience for the time it lasts. One pain point is that the protagonist moves very slowly. You get a dash after a while but it doesn't really make you have a reasonable move speed. Doesn't make it difficult, just kinda tedious to play. It sounds like I'm kinda negative on this game and I am, but there's nothing majorly wrong with it. Not every indie developer can be Team Cherry and spend 7 years making a hit game for less than $20. If you've played enough of the highly regarded Metroidvanias that you're looking at this one, you could do a lot worse than this one.

I don't expect much from these microvania's before playing them, but they offer something that's nice to fit in my busy schedule. That being a short bit sized metroidvania experience that i can 100% in one evening. Simona's requiem mentions all these aspects in perfect clarity/honesty on the store page and they're absolutely right! The length is indeed anywhere between 2 to 3 hours, perfect for one evening. It's indeed also not difficult, which i very much appreciate for such a short one and done experience. And it's also very chill with the platforming, level design and progression with only a few small sections slightly uping the difficulty. So in a sense i got exactly what was promised which is always nice but that was to be expected, what i didn't expect though is the polish in terms of game feel, audiovisuals and especially writing. That's not to say that this is a narrative highlight or anything but the writing was clever and very comedic. It actually even got a chuckle out of me a few times which i didn't expect. The short & simple story also came full circle in a nice way towards the end, with a great final joke to boot. The visuals were clean and soundtrack was suprisingl…

a little slow at first but once you get the first upgrade it feels so much better. Solid little game.

This game as an absolute gem. Obviously it wears its primary inspiration/reference on its sleeve, but it finds its own voice within that framework and runs with it.