izigame.me

Really novel idea with some interesting mechanics that mostly engrossed me for the short runtime. However, there are some serious balancing issues with the game. Firstly, this game promotes itself as being very challenging, but frankly the game more often felt janky rather than hard, especially when it comes to different elevations and bossfights. The combat itself can range from being very engaging when you are using platforms to your advantage in large puzzle-like encounters to mindless attack mashing, which I think is a sign the gameplay loop wasn't fully explored.
Secondly, there are a couple of items that pretty much trivialise the whole progression system. There is a really neat mechanic where you can get rid of some of your healing potions when going into an area in order to double their amount if you manage to finish that area. This whole dynamic can be entirely bypassed if you manage to acquire the parry heal charm, which is so extremely overpowered because of how easy it is to parry enemies in this game. That's not even mentioning you can make the parry window even larger if you choose so. But an even bigger offender is the flayer weapon. Its unique attribute is that it gives knowledge whenever you kill an enemy with a charged attack, knowledge being the resource you collect to unlock new items. With how many oneshot fodder enemies can spawn sometimes, you can practically unlock the entire arsenal in a single area run-through. Now, I don't know if this was intentional or not, but to me it felt like a cheap way to hide the lack of variety in encounters between runs by shortening the time it takes to unlock everything.
I have other nitpicks like the camera feeling wonky, especially in the hub area, as well as the generally uninteresting story. The artwork and atmosphere are fantastic though, and it's worth at least trying this game out for the vibe and novelty of the mechanics. This game is definitely not for everyone, but I still enjoyed it for what it was quite a bit.