Stardust Demon

I came back to this game again and again and I just can't do it. It's a terrible Metroidvania with a terrible ammo system. It expects you to do huge areas with pixel perfection. It is obscure as can be, with nearly zero resources (besides the dev who is basically answering one question after another for this confusing mess of a game). I wanted to like it. The art and animations evoke old arthouse movies and old cgi animations. It's got a cute story. The characters are interesting and have nice sprites. But there is just no fun to be had here.

An optional challenges/exploration focused metroidvania with quirky lovable characters and writing. Its difficulty curve smoothens out as you accumulate health upgrades Gives me nostalgic cave story vibes where. If you like one you'll probably like the other. Similarly to cave story the combat is initially difficult but eventually you find so much health upgrades it's trivialized and you can facetank anything that won't one shot you (death pits mostly). It differentiates itself from CS with its stronger emphasis on optional exploration. Clearing optional challenges (mirror laser bounce puzzles and surprisingly tough platforming) is how you'll accumulate most of your health/ammo upgrades. This game has limited ammo (replenishable from enemy drops). Not a fan of that, but it's only a factor in the early game bosses. Interestingly when your ammo runs out you can still use your fire breath as a short range attack before the projectile fully despawns.

Stardust Demon is a delightful platformer in the 'metroidvania' tradition where re-exploration is key to greater progress. You play Algol, a lazy demon who has been tasked with feeding berries to a statue. Things quickly go out of hand from there as he encounters a new best friend called Scringles, and the story blossoms into something with far greater meaning than you'd initially guess. The narrative and design aspects are interesting in how they portray Algol's character: there are several design decisions relating to Cave Story, specifically Algol's floaty controls and a handful of enemy types + movement patterns. However, as Algol gradually learns to become less self-centered and willing to work to help others, the game reveals a fascinating design philosophy about potential: there's multiple power-ups that make Algol's moveset more fluid but there's also moves in their basekit dash attack that seem sluggish until you figure out how to use it optimally, and then suddenly you can start to move very quickly. The game's storyline is relatively simple platforming that's interspersed by sometimes preposterously difficult side content (I went "you want me to do WHAT?!" several times …

This game has a wide range of difficulty, and some optional areas are super hard. But the difficulty makes you feel like you earned what you found. The story is absolutely top notch, and pulls just hard enough on your heart strings to make you feel like the end is near, but there is still hope. It's also so much fun being a demon.

This game will get a solid recommendation if control rebinds for keyboard are added. I cannot fathom the non-rebindable Z for jump & interact, X for attack, and arrows to move. It's borderline unplayable for me this way but if that gets fixed, the soundtrack is awesome and the gameplay is good.

This is a phenomenal game for what it is. Just don't go in expecting something that this game isn't, and you'll be quite pleasantly surprised. At first glance, you may expect gameplay quite similar to something like Cave Story. And in some ways, it is definitely similar, like with the art style and charming characters. The actual gameplay ends up being pretty different. Yes, you will notice sections where you just shoot through various enemies, and of course, bosses, but the similarities end there. This game's challenge is not in its combat, and as a metroidvania fan I admit I was expecting more in that regard, but that was due to my own misinterpretation. In any case, I was scarcely disappointed, because this game has its own challenge in its platforming and puzzles, akin to that of Celeste. Anyways, there were certain aspects of this game that stuck out to me, for better or for worse, and to one considering purchasing this game I'd like to address them. The limited ammo mechanic for weapons can definitely come off as strange, and near annoying in the earlier parts of the game, or if you don't do the side challenges that often reward you with more ammo capacity. I am a little sh…