Biomorph Review (Shiki)
Solid, albeit average, metroidvania. I have my issues with it but I've played so many of those that I might be pickier than most. It's a far cry from the pinnacle of the genre like Hollow knight or Lost Crown, but it's a decent time until Silksong comes. It just doesn't do anything that hasn't been done better elsewhere already. If you're looking for a decent metroidvania for a weekend, you could do worse. I give this a thumbs up a bit reluctantly.
the good:
- music is top notch, seriously great stuff
- combat sfx are punchy and satisfying
- pretty big map and decent biome variety
- very distinct visual identity.
the bad:
- pretty much all the forms I unlocked so far (12-ish) are flat out boring to play as and pretty much useless in combat. They're used constantly for traversal and then you ditch em to actually fight. People calling this a "kirby-like" are completely off track, in those games, the transformations are the star of the show IN AND OUT of combat. Here, I end up never using them unless I'm strictly forced to and glad when I'm done using most of em. They are slow, cumbersome and many have such ultra specific abilities for specific obstacles that they feel forced. Would've much preferred to have like... 10 forms with more varied movesets and allowing a variety of playstyles. *People expecting kirby-like powerups will be very disappointed*
- Not enjoying having only 3 slots for the memorised forms too, you always end up having to backtrack to a save point, change your loadout to get the form you need for a specific obstacle then go back. It gets old very fast.. and since pretty much all the forms are useless in combat, I'm never using them and I see no point at ALL to keep levelling them up just to run 10% faster or jump 1/4th of inch higher.
- map / area design is painfully average. The 5-6 biomes I've explored so far feel like every other average metroidvania I've played. I usually really enjoy exploring every nook and cranny in these games, here, not so much unfortunately... there's just very little surprises to be had, it's all very .... average.
- Bosses are boring: Their movesets are SO limited. They do 2-3 things on loop till 50% HP then add a new move or two. That's it... unless it changes later.... Their visual design is original, but the fight themselves are just "meh". They go down in no time flat with very little resistance. You can figure them out in the first 20 seconds of a fight. As far as metroivania bossfights go, it's pretty low tier.
- Could change later but the powerups you find are also not very exciting. Riding powerlines is not bad though.
- Story is quite forgettable so far and does nothing to push me forward. NPCs talk a lot but little substance, didn't take long before they veered into insta-skip territory.
So much more could've been done with this concept. Feels like a missed opportunity. It's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, clearly a lot of love was poured into this game... but with the flood of metroidvanias in the last decade and them saying they took inspiration from things like Hollow Knight, I'm saddened that they couldn't transfer what made these games so revered. Once I finish it I'll update my review if my feelings change.
**** Update after 10 more hours ****
Well, sadly I won’t finish this because I’m bored out of my mind. Changing my review to thumbs down
This simply is the most by-the-numbers average metroidvania I’ve played in a long time. I’m usually 1:1 in agreement with Demajen’s rankings but here I’m just baffled. This is near bottom of the barrel for me. I feel most of the positives reviews come from the visuals, which are pretty good… but peel that layer off and it’s a bland uninspired mess.
The world is just so boring to explore. Every zone nearly feels the same to navigate or just tedious to go through. It’s just a very blocky architecture that borderline feels procedurally generated at times.
My opinion on the forms after getting all of them has not changed, they all uniformly suck and are not fun to use. Upgrading them is pointless and is barely noticeable outside a few very specific cases. These shouldve been the star of the show. It’s so unfortunate.
The chips and mementos too, every one I unlocked I was curious to try but always came back to the first three (fist, gun, lance) because it’s just what’s most effective. The mementos effects are not thst exciting either. Upgrading either is just …. Making then a bit stronger, more charges, etc. No new effect or anything exciting.
The bosses somehow got worse. This has to be the worst set of bosses I’ve seen in a game of this genre. No challenge, none of them impressive in the slightest. Practically all of them left me a “that’s it?” impression. Basic, uninspired and incredibly limited movesets.
The needing to find those blueprints to get the mats needed to upgrade the save points for fast travel is a mind boggling design choice. There is zero point to it, it’s useless friction with no purpose. Now i’m missing a blueprint to get another set of upgrade mats and all the new save points I’m discovering, I can’t fast travel to, causing tedious backtracking that has just no reason to be. You should be able to fast travel to previously discovered SAFE spots.
Anybody looking for a good metroidvania, look elsewhere, this is absolutely not it and misses the mark on practically every metric outside visual and sound.