izigame.me

Now that I've beaten the game I understand why it has mixed review but I think the game deserves a recommendation honestly. I haven't watched the Secret Level Pac-Man episode so I haven't gone into this game with any expectations based on that either.
For starters, I'll go over the things I think the game does right. I feel like the swordsman controls well on foot and overall combat even if a bit simplistic feels good for the most part. It can be a bit finicky to try to parry or dodge right after doing your combo but overall it's nothing you don't get used to and learn to play around. I think the soundtrack is pretty good too and I honestly really like the art style. I get the criticism that sometimes there's elements just obstructing your view in the foreground but the actual quality of the art is high, so I'm not sure why the art quality itself is receiving so much criticism. This game also does have some legitimately tough platforming segments which is nice as I feel a decent amount of more recent metroidvanias don't really have those. The world map is also huge in a way that doesn't feel artificially inflated which is always a plus in my book. Once you get both the double jump and the grapple I really like how the movement feels and I'd say the game's at its strongest once you're at that point.
Quick aside, I'd the story is perfectly serviceable. I generally don't play metroidvanias for the story but this one's was fine. Maybe if you've already watched the Secret Level episode you won't enjoy it as much as that's the impression I've gotten from seeing other people's opinions, but for me I thought it was enjoyable enough.
For the negatives, the first and foremost is the amount of HP bosses have. Even early on when I upgraded my attack power to the max level bosses felt unnecessarily spongy. The controls when you're on the purple lines and you're going along as Pac-Man are also way worse than the on foot controls and as a result any segment that heavily focuses on those controls can feel varying degrees of less fun than the on foot segments depending on the level of precision. The save system is also weird. Basically, there's "checkpoints" and then real save points. You cannot fast travel to checkpoints unless you use a consumable, and even then you can only fast travel to the last checkpoint you used. Checkpoints also do not refill your healing flask unlike real save points which is frustrating. If all the checkpoints had just been real save points the game wouldn't have been too easy at all imo. In general the game could have also done to just have more of both checkpoints and save points.
Overall, despite the flaws I did enjoy my time with this game and I do think 30 bucks is a fair price for the amount of content you get out of this game. If you can look past some jank and put up with the save system it is a genuinely good game that feels good to play once you have some tools besides the basics at your disposal.