Constance (2025)

The game is just OK. As I noted about the demo, movement feels fluid and satisfying enough. But there is something missing in the level design and platforming that makes the experience just fine. The reason I didn't finish is that the bosses are so boring. They are all gimmick bosses that take ages to beat just because they can only be damaged at particular moments. Attack patterns are extremely repetitive too; they mostly have 3 or 4 attacks that they perform one after the other in order. At one point I was losing to one because I kept getting distracted and not paying attention, that´s how bored I was.

So it would be 3/4 starts for the platforming (liked it / really liked it) but a 1 star for the bosses (didn't like it at all).

I was genuinely so impressed with Constance when I started it up. Absolutely beautiful artwork combined with slick gameplay and incredible sound design. But as the game went on, my enjoyment declined at a pretty linear rate.

The one big issue: the map. An integral part of the Metroidvania experience, and personally it can be a make or break thing as I am a completionist to the core. In this game… it’s the worst map of all time.

Imagine Ender Lillies’ map, but remove all redeeming qualities to it. Big blocky rooms that have no shape, zero detail, and a frustrating lack of zoom controls (plus a worthless overworld map). Now take away the one great thing about Ender Lillies map, which was that it showed when each room was completed. You could tell by the color if a room had any missing secrets. Constance does not. So it’s basically just blocky shapes with doors and… that’s it.

Add to this frustration the fact that the game gives multiple late-game quests. So even if you manually scan every nook and corner of every room (as I did), you would still have to do that all over again if you want to 100% the game. Nope, not doing that.

Anyways, the platforming is very solid and the abilities are cool. Combat is smooth. Music is fine. Everything has a ton of polish, but personally I just got to about 4/5 of the way through and lost all desire to continue.

Hopefully they will fix it because I’ve seen many others with similar complaints. But for now - 2.5/5

The demo was good in that movement feels good and solid. But the difficulty curve is wack. I very quickly found a platforming challenge that was far too demanding so early in the game. Plus, the lack of directional attacks is pretty annoying.

I stopped playing because the game stopped responding to directional input and when I quit and restarted it had lost a bunch of my progress.

Put it in the "maybe" pile.