3000th Duel (2019)

Disclaimer: I haven’t 100% finished yet, but that’s due to reasons I will get into.

3000th duel is a Metroidvania, RPG, hack and slash 2.5d fantasy game. It feels pretty solid to control, and has some intense boss battles. The game is extremely front loaded - it is a blast for the first couple of hours as you get upgrade after upgrade and the gameplay is intensely paced.

As it goes on though, it starts to show its weakness. Backtracking is horrible. You have to hack and slash your way through way too much tedious combat, and it gets really old. The level design is not well planned for backtracking - warps and shortcuts are too few and far between.

As the game goes on, it gets less and less interesting. The combat, as I said, is only fun for a couple of hours. The later game pacing is very slow and monotonous. The art style, while passable, also gets pretty old. The writing is pretty skippable from beginning to end.

I think this game could’ve been pretty good if the fat was trimmed and the level design / backtracking was more fleshed out. But as an overall experience, I don’t think it’s worth your time.

I went in thinking this looked decent and I was being stubborn about buying Metroid Dread, so I went for this as a cheaper distraction.

Well, this game shockingly delivered.

The combat was smooth and the map was big, but not too big.

The only negative I had for the game was the quasi-bossrush at the end. It makes you redo several of the bosses back to back, and they're supped up versions without a health bar. Some of them fell easily, but others not as much. There was, at least, a generous amount of save locations, so that was good at least.

Overall, a good game to tide over my Metroidvania itch while I wait for my library do get me a copy of Dread.

~David.