Toziuha Night: Order of the Alchemists

If you want a game that is an absolute ♥♥♥♥ show where balance is concerned, this is the game for you! I hope you enjoy having a normal time on the first couple zones then suddenly get bombarded with enemies that have tons of health and deal absurd amounts of damage, while having to deal with multiple at once! Oh, even better, there's an achievement to get Treasures from bosses; what does that entail? Oh, just kill them all without taking damage, of course; awesome idea and so well designed! I tried the game on normal then had to know what the deal with hard mode is; THAT is a burning pile of ♥♥♥♥, without even the slightest attempt at keeping it challenging but fair. The only way to play Hard is to spend hours grinding in every single zone because the jumps in enemy damage and health are that ludricous. And, Hard Mode with level set to 1? Yeeeah, eat ♥♥♥♥ with that garbage. All around a bad time. I don't mind difficulty; I do mind badly balanced and badly thought-out, which this game is. Grinding levels every couple zones is not a suggestion; it's a requirement.

great game and all, but the planning is awful. i've never been so lost or wasted so many hours wondering where to go or what to do. after looking at all the walkthough videos and visited a few of the chat rooms, I realized I soft locked myself from being able to progress any further because the last jade key is trapped between two rooms that can only be reached if one of the doors is already opened. there are much better metroidvanias out there to spend your time exploring.

Returned because I didn't see an option to remap controller keys.

Juegazo

Fantastic, MUCH more than a Castlevania clone! A metroidvania that carves out its own identity by really focusing on alchemy for abilities, lore, and even riddles. Stern but fair boss fights that kept me on my toes. Tough difficulty balanced by lots of spells and abilities and accessible but not OP healing items. The boss hits that knock you across the room, inflict the injured status, and let out a yell from the protagonist really feel visceral. I appreciate that TN:OA doesn’t really hold my hand on where to go, a good Metroidvania much like Super Metroid should ask you to get lost and find things along the way. Even when I was stumped on where to progress on the map I consistently found new upgrades and abilities by exploring. I enjoyed Xandria gradually growing as a person, eventually caring about others. All the pixel art is really well done. Fans of Castlevania, Bloodstained, and Silksong should have a great time.

The grappling swinging is so jank that it very much makes me want to not recommend the game. Fun to play around with on easy mode, couldn't imagine ever doing it on normal mode. Trying to complete it has been a pain. Way too much friction with platforming mechanics. It is a full sized castlevania style game with an expansive map, lots of abilities, items, secrets, etc. Lots of backtracking and things to keep track of. I made it about 40% until I had to start googling where to go. Overlooked a place I needed to go before I could progress anymore, merchant in the forest. Spent like 2 hrs in that hallucination fog. Like an hour on the 9 haunted bells. Thought I was looking for 9 bells, not killing 9 ghosts with the bells. The grappling swinging is absolutely terrible. Gave up trying it out in the tutorial room you obtain the thing because of the sheer cold killing me. Felt like I blasted through 70%-90%. Still hate the grappling swinging. Not sure where to even go now. Feels like I'm missing at least 4? jade keys. Think I need to backtrack to grappling swinging at snow mountain. No idea how to get to the top of the desert pyramid. Think I drop down from above with a jade key at…