Hm. At first I was sorta enjoying my time with it, but as the game went on, I realized all of my minor annoyances just grew and grew until the whole thing became a slog.

Pros: It’s very pretty. The backgrounds are rich and the animations are smooth. It also has some good platforming (floating?) puzzles.

But I’m not sure what ruined this game for me first. There’s the combat, which is arguably the entire center piece of this game. I am a bullet hell fan - I love memorizing patterns, being agile, and dancing with the enemy. This game BOMBARDS you with bullets from so many directions and so many patterns. It’s like playing 4 songs at the same time. It’s literally impossible at times, and the occasional one where u slip through it feels by chance more than accomplishment.

I had to use a cheat to get some health drops, but that just made the game boring because you basically become invincible.

The story and dialogue is… bad. I can’t put my finger on it, but it just feels like a high schooler writing an anime script. The husband and wife dynamic is just kinda cringey, the whole political factions stuff is just under baked, and every line of dialogue feels skippable.

The Metroidvania upgrades and rpg skill trees are very basic and don’t add any real feelings of empowerment. Backtracking is tedious. And I really just didn’t like the character designs.

Ultimately, I just don’t feel like the game design was really there. It drew me in with its art style and the shmup Metroidvania shtick (see blast brigade for an amazing example of this), but really doesn’t execute under the surface.