Under The Island

Under the Island is good. Not great, but good - I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game, short as it was, and despite my problems with it. It's a charming, well-paced, classic style action adventure game made in the vein of Link to the Past, with great graphics, music, and tons of charm. That said, the story, while promising at the start, completely peeters out at the end, with a very weak ending, and the cast aren't interesting enough to carry it. And as for the gameplay, it was mostly fine, with the exception of the boss in the water facility dungeon. That ♥♥♥♥ felt unintuitve and very frustrating. That and enemies towards the end take a little too much damage before they die while dealing a LOT of damage to you. Not a deal breaker, but more annoying than anything. Not sure about getting this game at full price, but definitely worth grabbing on sale.

Solid game! The classic Zelda influence is incredibly present, even if the store page is content to describe it as purely "90's nostalgia" for the sake of comparison. here's the review: Some things it did well: - the game is just fun! its colorful, the music is good, and there's a lot going on. The critical path is 5 dungeons long, but I estimate that the work I did purely to progress the critical path was about a third of my total play time. The rest was spent exploring the world, finding collectibles, secrets, and hidden paths and otherwise just having a nice time. - Despite the clear Zelda influence, the game has a lot of its own ideas and they're pretty good. The shovel being a dual purpose unlock, as well as being really clearly signposted as tool that would be good to have (without my guessing, honestly, exactly what it would be before getting it) is a great example. The bird is also a nice spin on the remote activation mechanic a lot of Zelda games have. Even being able to set bushes on fire has a unique spin here in that the fire mechanic has other functions besides. - Combat is also pretty good. It starts off feeling a little awkward, but it works narratively, and I think…

It's pretty good if a little bit lacking on the character front. I got very similar vibes from this as I did from Bloomtown but I think I prefer the latter just in terms of the heart behind it. Still, a very good Zelda-like and I had fun with it.

It's a really good Zelda-like game. I would buy it again. The demo version goes up to the end of the first dungeon, but unfortunately, you can't carry over your save data from the demo.

Fun. Lots of bits outside the main quest.

Awesome game! The art is so good and I Ioved how creative is every boss fight! The progression is very well made too. Congrats!