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(+2)

fantastic game on both art and gameplay. but i did want to focus my comment on the parry mechanic because its the best part of the game and also its biggest flaw.


the parry mechanic is clearly the main point of the game, all the enemies are centered around it and it feels extremely tight and good to land parries. (though it did take me a while to figure out how to beat the first monster room) however i think the parry mechanic is too good that its all you really ever need to use. by the time i was fighting the actual bosses, i was just standing in the center of the room timing my parries to them and occasionally walking closer when they were shooting projectiles.

it was also very separate from the metroidvania aspect of the game since it served no purpose outside of combat and enemies only appeared in monster rooms for the most part. it would have been nice if there were some parry based puzzles that gate your progress around the map.

i also think the other upgrades would have been cooler if they were integrated into the parry instead of their own skills, like parrying in air caused you to double jump or charging your parry would break walls,

to sum it up, the parry mechanic was just too good that it overshadowed the other aspects of the game. i wish it was used more in the actual map world interaction of the game too.

(1 edit) (+1)

Thank you for such an in-depth review! I think the idea of using the parry for everything would have felt pretty strange on the conrrols side, but I do see where you're coming from. I also appreciete your feedback on the design of the parry, and how you don't have to move as much. It's something I did notice while playing, but there's one thing that makes it make sense to me.

At heart, the game is a speedrunning game. I've said it before, but I believe the challenge of a boss comes from optimizing and chasing it down to get every parry you can, leading to clean parries and a bunch of timesave. (This is also why I removed unblockable attacks.)

I totally get it though. I do hope the design flaws you pointed out don't affect your ratings that much, and I'll be very focused on making sure everything feels cohesive and making sure the player has a reason to move about on a casual playthrough in my next projects.