izigame.me

I really enjoyed the narrative aspects of this game — both the writing style and the animations felt unique and engaging. I played using a controller, and my main playthrough took about 15 hours. Overall, I would recommend it.
Here are some areas I think could be improved (spoiler warning):
Must Have:
- The only part I found truly frustrating was how often enemies would interrupt exploration and collection. Objectively, about 75% of my gameplay was accompanied by combat music, especially in the desert (Chapter 2) and Acacia (final map). Subjectively, it felt like I was constantly under attack. I suggest adding a “Pacifist” skill that reduces enemy aggro. Since only a small portion of collectibles are combat-related, this change could significantly improve the experience for exploration-focused players.
- The tree that eats amber lacks proper tutorialization. The game teaches that watering the flower defeats it, but never explains that its projectiles are amber. I figured it out eventually, but not all players may be that lucky. At first, I thought I had to let myself get frozen into amber by enemies and then feed that to the tree (honestly, an interesting mechanic idea). Then I thought I needed to bait flower attacks toward the tree (which works for many puzzles). Ultimately, it seems the intended design was to parry the bullets into the tree — clearer guidance here would help.
- Some bosses lack clear cues. In particular, the crab in Chapter 3 and the robot in the bonus stage. With the crab, I didn’t realize I needed to extinguish its fire before attacking. With the robot, I broke its shield but didn’t understand that it could be attacked again. It would help if scanning the boss highlighted vulnerable parts. Also, with the crab, I often failed the ground slam, and the downtime waiting for a proper attack window felt pointless — the boss simply didn’t attack often enough. Plus, the ground slam input is finicky and requires fast reactions.
Nice to Have:
- When health is low, it would be great if scanning showed the locations of healing items. I already instinctively scan for health when I’m low, so this would be a helpful quality-of-life feature.
Bugs & Issues:
- While ziplining, the player can still rotate — and the controller vibration during this sequence is a bit too intense.
- While diving, the map’s direction indicator doesn’t match the player’s facing direction.
- Since the key remapping patch, I’ve been unable to shake the left stick to break out of abnormal states (like being frozen). This might be something worth investigating.
- Some creatures can grab the player through solid objects, similar to an old bug involving Roadhog in early Overwatch.
- Underwater, enemies still try to attack, which breaks animations.
- A burrowing enemy in the desert moves through quicksand, but the visual effect doesn’t look right.
- Lightly pushing the analog stick doesn't trigger a proper slow-walk animation — it just slows the standard walk, which looks awkward.
Maybe Next Time:
- Compared to the previous game, this one improves on repetitiveness. However, tutorials in each area feel rushed. I get that the design encourages players to unlock teleport points first and then introduces mechanics, but this formula is a bit too rigid. Perhaps each planet could have a short mainline quest, and leave the rest for players to discover — after all, this is an exploration game!
- Focus more on the core! Personally, I don’t think the home base system was necessary — and it clearly took a lot of development effort. That effort might have been better spent expanding new features like the spray system or other mechanics. Of course, this might have been influenced by internal planning or production goals.
- I noticed the traditional "big studio" elements — foliage, desert, snow — and I suspect they were originally meant to be full-fledged planets before being condensed. If that’s the case, consider cutting them down. Big studios include these things to showcase advanced graphics, GPU-driven rendering, and subsurface scattering — but for this game, I was much more drawn to how special and fresh it felt. Focus on what makes the game unique. If you do want to expand, DLC might be a better avenue!
- I also noticed a lot of resources went into in-game video content — specifically the humorous ads shown through the in-game video player. As someone who played the previous game, I knew to watch for these and found them entertaining. But for new players, these might not have the same impact. Looking at the credits, I saw a significant number of film production roles, so maybe consider reallocating some of that effort toward features that more players will actively engage with — it might help with broader player retention and early game impact.
Well done overall — I’m excited to see more from this team in the future!