Spirited Line

I am not much of a video game player, but I saw this in one of those IronPineapple steam dive videos and this one looked so cute that I had to give it a try. Played the demo and then I bought the game to stream to my friends. It took me a bit to get through it but I was able to beat a souls-like and that's really exciting to me. I liked the aesthetics of the character models, as well as the atmosphere of the rooms. The boss fights were fun and challenging and outside of some stuttering during the jinn and the final fight, it was a smooth experience for me. My favorite fight was the rat king. The spooky model, the adorable rats, and the second phase were all so much fun for me to see. I did not care for the jinn fight. I might have experienced a bug, but there would be long stretches of time where I would stand around doing nothing while the jinn was spinning into the sand and popping up somewhere else. The second half of the fight was far more enjoyable than the first half. I think it would be improved if the jinn went worm mode at 75% HP instead of around 50%, especially because wailing on the worm lasted a while. The camera angles for some of the fights made seeing the boss an…

Giving it a positive review because the charm is very nice but it has some issues At least on steam deck it stutters on final boss fight a ton. Doesn't matter what graphics setting. None of the boss fights really feel "good". The camera angles you can't see your character all the way. The genie dude was the worst case. bosses just don't feel very fun to fight. Last fight was pretty sweet but I had bad stutters on my steamdeck and that made it pretty frustrating

I did try this game on one of previous next fest and I thought it was fun, a simple yet artistically good boss rush game and it's still is a good game but, it's not perfect. The story is simple, after waking up into a field you starts following a glowing butterfly that leads you to an abandoned metro station, after getting into the cart you encounter the janitor, "you have to defeat the demons to liberate God" he says and so you do it, simple story nothing too special but a little more wouldn't hurt especially some more explanation after every defeated boss or a story or how they became like that would be nice. The gameplay is simpler, you have to defeat the bosses to progress and get out of the station, you have one hit before dying and restarting the boss fight, which is brutal for some of them but to be honest, the bosses are not that good, at the start, they are really simple and not with a lot to them, some of the later encounters are fun and interesting especially for the one hit/K.O. deal but still they are not that challenging, annoying but not challenging, annoying because of some of the controls choices aren't that great like, the dodge, I think it need some more adjustme…

This is a thumbs-up with caveats. Go in expecting jank. Hit detection and hit boxes can be iffy. The later bosses can feel more tedious and punishing than truly challenging at times. The lack of music outside of boss fights (and every boss has the same simple loop other than the final one) really kills the atmosphere. Otherwise, I had an OK time with it. At such a low price, grabbing on sale is worth the 1-2 hours it'll take to finish it once (which also gives all achievements). With a bit more polish, especially some music between bosses, variations of music for each boss, and tightening up of the fight design for some, this would be pretty good. As it is, it's an OK proof of concept that hopefully bodes well for an improved game in this style later from the devs.

THE jinn fight is so rigged no matter how you dodge his swords just get you

Reviewing games after playing them for such a short period of time is generally mean-spirited, ill-informed, or ill-intentioned, but as the game itself is quite short, I feel less bad about doing so. Also, making games is incredibly hard, so I'm not sitting here saying I could do better. I'm offering my opinion on what I played of the game. There are two massive issues that hindered my enjoyment of the game, in a way the cranked the frustration levels to 11. The first is the camera, which doesn't show you enough of the later fights, and obscures attacks (placement/direction etc.) on both the left and right sides of the arenas way more, leading to incredibly cheap feeling deaths (I got lost in the camera behind one of the bosses, unable to see myself OR the boss, as the camera's positioning wasn't zoomed out far enough for me to see). The second is the insanely punitive hitbox on your character, sometimes arbitrarily so. Having played a pretty decent number of Souls-likes, the timings and 'means' by which some attacks 'hit' you feel really harsh and not particularly 'fair'. Difficulty is fine, if it's executed fairly. Even one-hit death games can execute the hitbox in a way that'…