izigame.me

First: View at this as a kind of mixed review (thumb is in the middle but slightly upwards). I played the Game for nearly 12 Hours and at the moment that i´m writing this review, i finished it. There were a lot of things that motivated me to continue but also some that really frustrated/annoyed me to the point, that i thought about quiting the game. I love metroidvanias and played quit a lot of them in my life (good ones and really really bad ones) This one is a sort of love and hate relationship.
Positiv (+)
+ Love the artstil. A lot of details, reminds me a lot of good old castlevania or Blasphemous/Timespinner. The designs are great and the world feels how i would expect it from a good metroidvania.
+ Plenty of weapons and equipment to choose from. You can play however you wish. Primary Weapons are usually Swords and Staffs. You can either play as a mage or a warrior but there is also the possibilty to use fast daggers and to become a rogue. Mixed builds are also possible.
+ Skillsystem. You can level up and invest points in four different stats (Health, Strength, Dexterity and Magic). There is also the possibility to reset your stats so don´t worry if you screw up. An option for respecc exists later in the game.
+ It depends of the build but the fights are challenging and sometimes you have to repeat a boss a certain amount of times, to learn his moveset and how to dodge it. Normal enemies also require you to learn, how to deal best with them.
+ Bossfights for the most part were fun (more information later on) Creative bosses that look like the came out of an nightmare (in a positive way)
+ Lots of Loreletters to find, so you can dig deeper into the story of the game.
+ Steam-Deck Support is there and it runs really smooth. Great game to play on the go.
+ Exploration is great. There is a lot to find and see. Also some secret rooms. Really motivated me to play further.
+ Multiple Endings (For Spoiler reasons i won´t go any further into this, just be sure you create more than one savefile, if you want all of them)

Minus (-)
(2x) - Clunky combat-system. For the most part it works well and if you know what you are doing, normal enemys (with patients) won´t be a problem. However in Bossfights.... urgh... I often couldn´t dodge or do what i wanted to do, because the combat system reacted to slow or didn´t catch my inputs (switching weapons for example). I know i´m a kind of viking-guy (?) and should be really fast but this nearly killed my playthrough. Not because i couldn´t beat the game but it didn´t feel good to play (and i´m always looking forward to play metroidvanias because of the exploration and the combat). Combat however gets better with every new upgrade for your character and this kinda fixes the game a bit. Otherwise my playthrough would have ended way sooner.
- Storys lacks a lot. I know what the developers intend to tell you and what role your character plays but it didn´t work for me (good concept but lacking side-characters, antagonists rather pale). Big Minuspoint also was, that i played the game in german when it released and that there were letters missing. For example everything with " ü. ä. etc" was just left out. They fixed this later on but it kinda killed my immersion.
- Air Movement later on is bullshit. I nearly ran into an enemys attack 9 of 10 times. Maybe it is just me but it felt terrible to play.
- No % for Notecompletion. I tried to find them all and had a 100% map clearing. Seems either the achievement is bugged or i haven´t got all of them. However i will never know because the developers didn´t add a list of them or a %, how many of them you already got. Same with weapons and other stuff except the map. THIS SHIT IS IMPORTANT GUYS!
- No new-Game Plus. Seriously i know the game isn´t that long but doing everything from the start again for one different ending? Please let me keep my stuff if i try to speedrun.
- Some bosses attacked outside of my visible screen. This is a small problem and only a few bosses do this. However if you fight one boss, that actually jumps all over the place, your game ends with you not even knowing, where he/she did fire the god fucking damnit blast.
All in all i recommend the game if you are a (hardcore) metroidvania-fan, that likes the artstil & exploring but also has good nerves because of the combatsystem. If you are a completionist and want a 100% please wait until there are more guides or if they add something to track your progress. For all other players i recommend this game if it is on sale or to try it out for 1,5h hour and give it back to steam, if it doesn´t click with you.