Shadow Labyrinth Review (Tastymuffins)
Basically everything about this game has been frustrating.
First of all, my controller (ps5 dualsense pro) didn't work at all. I had to disable steam input, but all of the in-game button prompts are still for keyboard. So every time I get to a new power or get to a new mechanic the game explains the controls for keyboard and I have to memorize all of the keys mentioned, go into the controls menu, and then find the action for that key so I can look the corresponding controller button. And sometimes that doesn't even work! The menu doesn't list any controller button for the mecha transform power you get early on. I literally had to sit there trying every button, and then every pair of buttons until I figured out that it was both thumbsticks at the same time. And if you didn't understand the controls immediately or forget something, well too bad there's no way to review the explanation and you just have to push buttons until you figure it out.
There is no ultrawide support.. fine, a lot of games still don't have this. But instead of putting black bars on the side they stretch the image which looks horrible. So instead I have to use windowed mode to get the proper aspect ratio and either just deal with the fact that my desktop taskbar covers up part of the game and the bottom half of the text every time pick up a new crafting material, or lower the resolution even more to not use the full height of my display.
All of that is super annoying, but the actual gameplay is just not fun. Immediately the movement and controls felt super clunky and unresponsive. The "D-Line" magnetic rail sections are awful. Your character has no momentum so if you change your movement even a moment too early you will just come to a dead stop. And of course if you change direction a moment too late you also come to a dead stop. You can only jump off in three directions, straight up, straight ahead, or diagonally at an angle. But for whatever reason you can only jump diagonally if you come to a complete stop!! In a combat situation the forward goes super far and in most situations would propel you straight into an enemy where you would take damage, you are mostly limited to a single option.
Combat has the same sluggish feeling with no fluidity between different animations. That said, the enemies are equally terrible so you won't really have any problems. The enemies that don't die before they can even attack just cycle through the same telegraphed move. The bosses aren't better and have 3 or 4 super telegraphed, easy-to-dodge attacks with a lot of time to counter in between. So far I haven't gotten hit during a boss fight.
The level design is boring and uninspired and just feel like long slogs to the next checkpoint. And you don't even recover your healing charges.
I could go on with how bad everything feels but I think I've said enough. Total disaster.