I bought this game because I'm always down to play a new metroidvania, no matter how simple it is, 'cause I love the genre.

This game is nothing groundbreaking and it doesn't excel in any particular way, but it's fun enough to play and I enjoyed it enough to get all the way through it.

The strongest attributes are the sprites - the main character's animations look good and the enemy designs are varied.

This game also has a lot of content. There are a lot of areas, and they are pretty darn big. The issue is that the areas aren't particularly distinct, so it's sort of a quantity > quality thing going on, but it does feel nice to play a game in this genre that is expansive like this. There is a lot of optional stuff though, gauntlet battle challenge areas, hidden bosses, and a bonus dungeon with very high difficulty level.

The enemies have simple, recognizable patterns that are fun to interact with. I'm not good at games that require too much quick reflexes so I like stuff like this where you can easily plan around the enemies. Same with the bosses, they have simple patterns but it's satisfying to learn them and take them down.

There aren't many signs of this being a game from a new developer, but there are a few things that sadly lower the game's quality level, the main ones being there's an issue with the jumping where hitting a ceiling makes your character continue their jump animation even once they've reached the ground, and some enemies (particularly large bosses) have strange hitboxes that don't really make sense.

The lategame sort of drags on because the lategame bosses (which are optional) have waaaaaaaaaay too much HP and take what feels like forever to kill, especially because they repeat the same simple pattern over and over again. It was sort of dreadful getting to 100% because of this.

The missile/magic system was weird. Magic spells did about the same damage as missiles, but you had way less MP than you do missile expansions. And finding an MP expansion only lets you cast like 2 more spells, even though the MP expansions are way rarer than a 5-missile expansion. They weren't very satisfying to get. Magic spells also all felt too similar since they almost all just shoot a straight projectile, would like to see more variety.

The way progression works ends up mostly feeling like upgrades are just keys that let you proceed past certain doors or environments. A good metroidvania finds as many ways as possible to make each upgrade feel like a natural way to let you progress further while also changing the gameplay. This game isn't quite there yet, particularly for the underwater/heat areas which you interact with 0% until you get the item that lets you survive underwater/in heat. It also means backtracking for items is as simple as just going back to doors that you couldn't open, you never really find any new areas or side rooms.

The story was alright, it's mostly just "clever" banter between the game's two main characters. This style of dialogue can be sweet but sometimes feels amateurish, I'm not sure why. While I get what they were trying to do with Ernhardt, his character crosses a line and just becomes unbearably cringe worthy after a bit. I apologize for using this term, but he's, like, peak beta male, and they try to make him as embarrassing and pathetic as possible, and I'm supposed to find it cute or something the way he's incredibly weak and insecure, but... it's... really annoying. Camille is a good use of the "rival" character and I like the way they used her to convey the stakes of the game by setting her up as a rival and then having her be like "No, seriously, something really bad is going on here, I don't even want to be your rival anymore". The plot doesn't actually go anywhere scary, but it's a good set up at least! Also, please cut it out with the constant boob jokes with female characters bragging/whining about how big/small their boobs are. I find that stuff cringeworthy enough in anime and other japanese media, I don't really want to see it here...

The music is alright. Nothing I'm going to be listening to after beating the game, but it works. The main theme is kind of catchy, actually. The graphics are nice if you're into this oldschool style, but they don't have much variety so it gets old after a while.

Overall, it's a decent game, if you're someone like me who likes metroidvanias enough to want to play any and all of them, this game is a neat experience.