Playing Alwa's Awakening and getting Nintendo Hard (TM) flashbacks. It's punishing but fair. You're slow as fuck and die in 3 hits (while getting instakilled by most environmental stuff). As a compromise you don't lose anything when you die (map progress, item pickups, shortcuts, etc.) which is a massive leg up. Actually a lot of the time it's better to simply suicide the character so you can conveniently respawn instead of making the trek back. I never think losing on purpose is good design but whatever.
So right off the bat you're slooooow, super vulnerable and have a puny jump and that's how it's going to be for the whole game apparently. The typical Metroidvania pickups like double jump and air dash are replaced with summoning spells that play into the platforming, mostly, like a block that serves as a stepping stone and bubbles you can ride up. The focus being on level design and navigating death trap rooms, there's very little margin for error (while involving a LOT of trial and error). But like I said - punishing but fair. Most of the time it boils down to being patient and playing to the character's limitations.
The rooms are generally pretty clever and the powerups play well with each other. There's some awkwardness around other mechanics though. You're told your power level goes up with every set amount of orbs you collect, but there's no way of attesting to this since 1) most enemies already die in one hit and 2) whenever you meet a new enemy, and they also die in one hit, you can't be sure you're not getting ahead of the difficulty curve. There's a much hyped treasure that ostensibly doubles your melee damage once you finally get it and again, how would I know? And there's a flask that, when filled with water, will automatically refill your health when you lose every heart. This is neat but if you do get killed afterwards the flask does not refill when you respawn, and since wells are rare and never found near bosses or inside dungeons, that means you'll be playing with three hearts max for most of the game, including the toughest parts.
So right off the bat you're slooooow, super vulnerable and have a puny jump and that's how it's going to be for the whole game apparently. The typical Metroidvania pickups like double jump and air dash are replaced with summoning spells that play into the platforming, mostly, like a block that serves as a stepping stone and bubbles you can ride up. The focus being on level design and navigating death trap rooms, there's very little margin for error (while involving a LOT of trial and error). But like I said - punishing but fair. Most of the time it boils down to being patient and playing to the character's limitations.
The rooms are generally pretty clever and the powerups play well with each other. There's some awkwardness around other mechanics though. You're told your power level goes up with every set amount of orbs you collect, but there's no way of attesting to this since 1) most enemies already die in one hit and 2) whenever you meet a new enemy, and they also die in one hit, you can't be sure you're not getting ahead of the difficulty curve. There's a much hyped treasure that ostensibly doubles your melee damage once you finally get it and again, how would I know? And there's a flask that, when filled with water, will automatically refill your health when you lose every heart. This is neat but if you do get killed afterwards the flask does not refill when you respawn, and since wells are rare and never found near bosses or inside dungeons, that means you'll be playing with three hearts max for most of the game, including the toughest parts.
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