A very solid and impressive action-Metroidvania that I sadly couldn't really enjoy to the fullest due to the constant camera swinging. The soundtrack was top-notch and definitely some of the best music I've heard in the jam so far. The graphics were somewhat basic, but did the job - the player sprite worked well in the simple 3D environment, and I quite liked the use of paintings as a minimal yet effective basis for different enemy designs.
I really liked the way the game communicated the story through a combination of sparse notes and environmental storytelling. Becoming able to see the trapped souls escape from the paintings after the eye upgrade was a really clever reveal and big "wow" moment from me. The little twist regarding the player character at the end was also pretty cool, and the story did a good job building up to the final boss.
One of my favorite things about the game was definitely the sheer amount of mechanical depth for such a relatively short playtime. Every action felt like a tactical choice, from prioritizing enemies to choosing between attacking, kicking or dashing. I almost wished the combat was a bit slower-paced just so I could have had more time to make better decisions, but there's definitely a lot to master (no pun intended) here for speedrunners!
The player attacks had a nice sense of impact, although the hit stuns and apparent lack of iframes meant it was sometimes easy to find yourself at the receiving end of annoying combos from enemies. Funnily, I found the final boss to be one of the easier fights in the game, since his attacks were fairly predictable and he didn't swamp you with throngs of minions like some of the other encounters. On the other hand, I feel like the first boss (the giant painting) was made needlessly harder by the forced camera lock.
Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, both combat and exploration were made much harder for me by the constant camera snapping, as well as occasional bizarre forced angles in certain areas. I often found myself not being able to go in the exact direction I wanted to due to not being able to angle the camera just right. I think the game would have worked better with just a regular free-looking mouse camera, and support for gamepad joysticks would probably have helped a lot as well (or perhaps it's just my gamepad that wasn't supported).
Overall, even despite my issues with the camera, I had a lot of fun discovering the game's story and figuring out the combat. Excellent job!
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