izigame.me

I wanted to like this game, and I had moments where I felt like things were going to ramp up, only to feel that pit in my stomach that what I was playing was too familiar an experience.

So the story is pretty standard, none of the reveals should surprise anyone too much. I’m sure many of you will get where it’s heading as soon as you reach the point where the original demo ended.

Nothing too demanding about the combat, either, you have a LOT of tools – a roll and air dash with almost no cooldown whatsoever, the ability to attack in eight directions with most weapons, auto-aiming guns for your secondary weapon. While you’ll sometimes be put in a bad spot with status ailments where multiple enemies can kill you in seconds, for the most part this game walks on the easy side, even the bosses. Many of the enemies move slowly, remain in place, and then give a long windup before they attack, which can usually be negated with your spirit sword, Lux. The game does ramp up near the end with some of the final bosses, and they even tried to get some nice gimmicks in, especially the secret final boss, which took me quite a few attempts to figure out, I’ll admit. But other than that, the skills given came dangerously close to trivializing both combat and navigation.

Speaking of navigation, the map design. I’ve noticed a bad trend in the adventure game genre that was in this game, too, where the bulk of the map design are a row of enemies in a room with no other hazards or gimmicks. In platformers you have less movement options and less health and maybe even a chance to die instantly, but you still have to fight enemies and deal with gimmicks all at the same time. And yet in adventure games, you get more tools with many of the layers of its platforming ancestry stripped away for the sake of combat that isn’t all that in-depth. Why? Something’s gotta give and players will only tolerate this for so much longer before they recognize the crust forming on this genre and turn away from these games.

It’s also important that I bring up the warp, too. On the one hand, sure, it makes for no backtracking. On the other hand, the way rooms become available to warp in works in the strangest way. It’s not enough to scrape the space that belongs to that room, it will remain red. You need to then go somewhere else to explore another new room, and only then will the previous room be able to be warped into. At first I found that clever since I did it into an elevator shaft to get a collectable puzzle piece (they open doors that give you good weapons and items) that you couldn’t get any other way. But then when I got the high jump I ended up warping to the highest point I could, scraping into a new room, going to find another room, and then repeating that maybe two or three times just to get to the very top of this huge vertical area you couldn’t climb, just to get a sword, or another puzzle piece. I wonder if it’s possible for a player to accidentally softlock themselves out of accessing those last crucial pieces if they explore the map without realizing this.

The system with Lux, where you can use her to render platforms usable or to control certain objects, drops off near the end of the game, where you’ll soon ignore these to dash over pits or high jump over walls. These parts could be engaging and demanding of my reflexes, but unfortunately didn’t make up for half of the game’s map design being hallways. For the most part it works okay, it’s based on proximity, but there were times when I was scrambling to attack an enemy only to accidentally activate a gimmick instead, even in boss fights, so that was an issue I had.

Side quests are very weak, with the only real reward for most of them being to get more puzzle pieces and fight a few optional bosses that you can easily destroy with Lux’s skill attacks. You’ll have more money than you know what to do with.

I think this game shares more in common with past adventure games than it’s able to distinguish itself from those. It’s executed well, it had an interesting gimmick, and it was a polished experience, but I don’t see much replay value in it. It actually feels too long to encourage runs, and there isn’t enough variety in how the weapons work to make a second playthrough feel worth it, either. I'm recommending this title, but not without a few major caveats that have less to do with the game and more with recognition of larger underlying issues in "metroidvanias".

Finished all bosses, incl. side quests and any other 'optional bosses in about 8.1 hours. I'll try to avoid any specific spoilers.
If I'd have to give the game a grade I'd give it around a 7.9/10
I love Team Ladybug games for their gameplay, but I hate them for their amount (or lack thereof) of content, and the linearity. Blade Chimera is no exception.
Gameplay:
You get to shoot / slash / and 'magic' your way through the game. You'll unlock a skill tree which gives you some traversal options as well as new abilities. Although they can be fun to use, I felt like there's 1 that outshines the others so hard that there's no reason to ever get them. Weapon wise there's a steady progression although you will be able to find a few that will outshine the rest. Late-game this gets even worse as there are some clear 'winners' in the melee and ranged department.
In terms of accessories there are two types. Ones that confer a 'special effect' on the character and ones that are a 'stat block' boost. The 'stat blocks' tend to be divided in attack/defend/recovery/exp gain. Here too, I felt that plain offense was a big winner as avoiding hits is the name of the game.
The game itself plays like a regular metroidvania, but it is quite easy. Bosses do not pose much of a challenge, although there are 2 that stand above the rest, with 1 in particular having 2 fun mechanics. Otherwise, bosses don't tend to have a lot of moves.
Small spoiler: There are a few sections where you control a different character One of these is fun, the other of these is boring
Level design is fairly linear, there are some circular paths and some branches. New areas are usually just gated behind either an ability or a security gate. And there are quite a few 1-2 room areas hidden behind a wall or ability. That said, I definitely did not have the traditional 'MetroidVania' feeling of exploration and discovery while trying to map out the entire area, it does feel like quite a linear endeavour.
Story & Characters:
You're a demon hunter part of a demon hunting cult.
The story is serviceable, although a bit predictable.
The sidekicks have nice designs, but don't play a huge part in the story and so were pretty forgettable for me.
The big bad was not that imposing.
Graphics & Sound:
Music and VFX are nice, and make the game feel like a very slick modern Metroidvania. Team Ladybug knows what they're doing and most of their games have this feeling of 'crisp' pixelart and sound and good responsiveness.
Replayability:
0, once you're done, you're done. You can go for a 100% run but that's about it, like most of their games.
All in all, I'd say it's definitely worth the €17,55 I paid for a short-medium length Metroidvania of great quality, with some minor flaws.

i dont even know what to say, team ladybug has been so consistent with their releases up until now but this game just flat out sucks. its fucking brimstone. im honestly surprised the same devs behind touhou luna nights and drainus could put this out, what did it even get delayed for? the pixel art is beautiful and the combat is very fun and customizable with lots of weapons; still the game manages to waste these things. the game might as well not even be a metroidvania, it's divided into 4 separate maps that you take a subway between. but that's not the biggest issue, you can unlock an ability very early on to fast travel. not just any fast travel, you can literally fast travel to ANY square on the map. this results in a domino effect where every aspect of the game either becomes flat out easy or just bad. the player can easily abuse this mechanic to get out of difficult situations to save and heal just to come immediately back to the same square they were on previously. this game does have challenge with it's level design and enemies but the player can completely ignore that with the abundance of currency and the aforementioned fast travel mechanic. but that's not the worst of it; the player can also use this mechanic to completely skip difficult platforming challenges and puzzles. teleporting to a square sometimes just puts you behind these obstacles completely trivializing them. there is a section of the game where you play as some past version of the protagonist that just plays like complete ass. funnily enough, the game takes away the fast travel mechanic for this part so you are forced to drudge your way through like 60% of the map with one attack going the speed of molasses. the game wanted you to care about it's story, but after the halfway point I was just skipping all the cutscenes because I wanted it to end already. the game also has a distinct lack of bosses, there were only 6 (iirc) and none of them stood out besides the 2 in the demo before these broken mechanics were introduced. for the final boss I just cheesed my way through with maxed out healing items, never learning the bosses patterns or getting better at the game.