izigame.me

It's hard to leave a review for this game as a negative rating. The game has been on my wishlist for something like 5 or 6 years now. I really REALLY wanted to LOVE this game, but there's just too many subtle things that keep me from saying "Yes, definitely pick this game up!".
First, some of the positives:
The graphics are gorgeous looking. The blues and purples and the greens and greys with the branches of the trees in the background is just beautiful!.
Certain movement mechanics (trying to avoid any spoilers) are easy to control where they could have gone really wrong.
The voice acting for the main character was pretty good. It added a mentally-vulnerable feel to the character -- almost as if like they had been through some terrible stuff and it left them somewhat traumatized. This was a good base for character development.

Now, some of the things that keep me from giving it a positive review:
Certain abilities / powerups, come, imho, way too late in the game.
The entire playthrough your gun always feel so weak no matter how many times you upgrade. I initially pumped crazy amount of levels into my gunpower and still beginning / early game enemies required so many shots that it just felt like a slog going from one point to the next. This might not have been too bad except that given the gameworld size you're CONSTANTLY treking back and forth through areas you've already been through. Towards the end of the game you should feel like your character has gotten crazy powerful against previous enemies, but it's not the case. The only power you feel is from the extra abilities, and even then, those abilities are more about traveling than fighting. If the game isn't about combat, then the gun upgrades shouldn't be needed (i.e. enemies shouldn't take that many hits even after upgrading), and if it is about combat (than the upgrades should do -way- more than they do)
The sound... Half of the time, I couldn't tell whether I was underwater or not. The ambiance used when exploring beneath, the obvious, surface, has a weird deep muffled sound to it making it sound like you're underwater. This is exacerbated by the fact that so much of the ambient plant life waves and flows around in what I assume to be wind, though they move like they're being affected by water current instead. Additionally, some of terrain pulsates softly and slowly this adds to the issue. The only way I guessed (guessed because I never really TRUELY knew whether I was underwater or not) was because of the areas where there IS water and the water is "bluer" than the volume of space in the areas when you're not in the water; not great. It should be pretty obvious. I feel like this, assuming the echo is not baked into the sound file, is an easy fix though, the sound just needs less echo effect applied.
The story:
This was a BIG issue for me, the previously mentioned issues were what made the game not really enjoyable, but this one made the game feel like I didn't get much out of the experience (aside from just play time). In an alien world, you believe that as you progress through the game, answers to questions should slowly be revealed and the environment and situation all makes more and more sense. This really isn't the case here. It's like the creator wanted to make a Metroidvania but the story came after. A game like this should have the story created, ideally, before any overworld is made. That way, the game world organically fits with the story (powerup / ability / item placement, boss placement, etc.) and makes sense for where they are and why they are where they are.
There's all these somewhat random pieces or chunks (completely seemingly unrelated veins or threads) that are introduced but never really fully expounded upon and explained. The main thing that causes you to run around the world is explained, but that alone is not enough because that main thing isn't about the main character. In my opinion, that's barely bare-minimum. There's all these questions that are left unanswered, and it definitely does NOT feel like these are unanswered questions deliberately because they are intended to be revisited in a later game or something.
Here's an example, through the dialogues the main character has with others in the game, you're constantly demonstrated to (via the responses the main character provides in the dialogues) that the character has no memory of who they are, what they are, or whether they're even human or not. Constantly. I mean this is a non-stop re-occurring theme of dialogues the main character has with other characters. Yet, at no point, does the game ever provide any (slow-played or otherwise) detail or backstory of the main character or the planet you're on. It's the enormously giant white elephant in the room! How did the character come to be on the planet? Were they part of a more advanced civilization? Is the main character human? What became of the people that the main character was a part of? Was there ever a civilization on the planet? If so, what happened to that civilization? So many basic questions that were just missed opportunities that could have REALLY fleshed out the story and made the entire experience feel organic. Instead, the game provides all these different chunks of dialogues that belong to different story veins which are un-connected with each other, bringing them up, never really expanding on those stories nor expanding on how each of those story veins connect to each other, and much less never really even providing information to questions regarding them that would fill in the gaps and maybe even answer some questions. (It's hard to explain without spoilers).
The base game is there, sure there's a few bugs (I think I mostly just experienced map bugs) -- nothing that's game breaking though. But it's a shame, as well made as the base-game feels, there's definitely tangible things that make the experience feel "humdrum" and critical things (the story issue I referenced) that are missing that keep me from giving a positive review.