Zexion (2025)

Not sure whether I'm having fun with this one. The Metroid 1-y sense of unguided exploration is cool, but the 8-directional aiming feels too limited for how fast-paced the combat is, and enemies respawning if you scroll them even slightly off-screen is just tedious.

One of the early bosses pulls an incredible prank on the player though, always love a good gameplay gag.

I have very mixed feelings on this game. I think it's objectively extremely high quality, with a vast authentically retro world to explore. There's tons of different biomes, micro-biomes, set pieces, enemies, scripted events, secrets everywhere, upgrades... it's a true retro epic of an homage to Metroid and the NES era. But ultimately, I only actually had fun about 20% of the time.

I suspect though its largely due to my own taste. The most objective criticism I have is the difficulty. It's brutal for much of the game, with the limited map, super fast paced fights with bullet hell sections as well as enemies that swarm and move so fast you just have to pray your stats are high enough. I rarely felt like I could strategize and react, the kind of combat games like Hollow Knight and Aeterna Noctis allow. I love tough fights but it has to be fair, with telegraphed moves that end up feeling like a dance. Here, it's often just bewildering and impossible to approach that way.

There's other things that felt a bit unfair, like long sections with no saves (though often bosses have checkpoints), some tough exploration if you want to 100%, etc. I guess it just stressed me out more than it felt fun and enjoyable. But I think there's a game here that many would see as a holy grail experience, and for them I do highly recommend it.

I stopped after 30+ hours because I was just trying to get to the end and stopped having fun long before. I would just say, know what you're getting into with this and if you're the type of person that would enjoy it.