izigame.me

20 hours into the game and honestly, I'm in love with it.
for now I'm seeing several negative reviews about the game and some even constructive criticism but let's analyze them briefly and talk about the good and bad things about the game

---- TOP NEGATIVE REVIEWS POINTS:
FAST TRAVEL
The game starts giving us potions as the only fast travel option, these potions are very rare and no NPC sells them at the beginning of the game. But I don't see how this could be negative for the game, I understand who says that the lack of fast travel is a show of ego on the part of developers who trust too much on their map and believe that players will like to go from one side to side without teleporting, but honestly I don't see how the lack of FT can become a problem, given the amount of path that the game offers and forces you as a player to better manage the things you are going to buy or ways that youre going(i know that keep walking in a vast world where you doesn't know where you're suppose to go kind look strange, but for me is something exiting, remember me when i was playing dark souls 1)
I only used two potions before reaching the part where you get infinite fast travel in the bigtree(and it was for go to the first zone again, I wanted to see if there was anything to do there)
COMBAT
I would like to start by saying that the devs did a great job in the weapons section, the game has several weapons and each one of them will have a different function and gameplay while you level up the skilltree.
The huge amount of weapon variation and their skills opens up a huge skill celling for those who like experimentation
the first point about combat in negative reviews is the contact damage, which I and many other metroidvania players really find interesting and adds to the game, you have to think carefully about where to place your character, when to jump, where to fall, etc.
The game's combat is extremely responsive, in my opinion better than the hollow knight itself, with aerial skills, weapon switching, parrys, and many other things.
I've seen people (mainly Chinese reviews) complain about the game not having incencibility or initial parry.
with respect to i-frame dash, the game doesn't really need i-frame for the whole beginning, the vast majority of bosses are easily dodgeable just by moving a little or jumping
and about the parry being anti-responsive, I don't know, for me in my gameplay the parry of just hitting the projectile and the greatsword parry work very well
BOSSES
about the bosses i saw several opinions, mine is that they are fantastic (i just wish that they had more unique ost), the great majority of the bosses are ''easy'' depending on your level, given that it's an open world game and you can get underleveled or overleveled easily, in addition to being able to pick up very strong weapons or armor easily (I myself picked up a weapon 4x better than the one I was using previously, just for being curious in the exploration and climbing a wall)
in terms of patterns, the ''mini bosses'' tend to have simpler and easier patterns as usual, but even so, they are still an interesting fight depending on your level.
But holy god the main bosses are great, incredible, it's cool to see that the game already has good bosses at the beginning of the game, which makes learn and react quickly to the patterns become something very fun
ART
I know some people have commented about the game dimentions or setting that there are times when you look lost or can't see things straight, I just didn't want to comment because it's ''personal'' as I can clearly see the characters and what happens on the screen, but it is undeniable that there are some parts that are a bit complicated, I can remember 2 places off the top of my head, but in general it is not as big problem as people say
And about the designs, they are very functional and beautiful, the only thing I could say about the art of the game is that the sprite of the main character being drawn in anime style (style that the game doesn't use) made me uncomfortable for a good while time, but overall you get used to it
------------------------
I believe that these were most of the criticisms from the negative reviews, now I will go into other points that I would like to talk about
------------------------
MAP
The map is huge. it's gigantic, and above all it's an amazing place to explore, if you go to my profile you'll see that I have hundreds of screenshots... because the world made in this game is just fun to explore.
the parkours to obtain items are challenging enough to make me smile when I manage to pass them, and almost always comes a reward in line with the difficulty of the given challenge
SOUND DESIGN
OST
I was walking on the meadow when I entered the cave and
begins one of the best ost I've ever heard in games,
honestly what the compositors did in this game is from another
world, ALL zones have a good memorable music
DUB (mostly english)
I played the game in English, and I can say that really, the dubbing is not the best, I forced myself to switch to Japanese
because I couldn't really get the feeling in the characters (Japanese also has some small problems but it's already much
better)
SOUNDS
one thing that bothered me at first was the character's attack screams and the sounds of the hits, her screams feel
inconsistent and out of place, for example using dualblade the character is screaming as if she is lifting something very
heavy.
there is little variation in attack sounds, however the ones that already have are functional, I might want some sounds for the
crit or air strikes.

NARRATIVE
I'm not going to get into the game's lore, but the narrative, the way the story is conveyed is good enough to be interested in a not-so-creative plot like (go looking for a girl who will probably be my future friend )
the characters feel alive, each person you meet on the journey is interesting and someone memorable, I remember when rosalia said she was leaving town and I was desperate traveling the entire map to find out where she would be
overall the narrative is functional and fun to follow
------------------------------------------------
TLDR: the beginning of the review was me saying my opinion about the general criticism that the game is getting but a summary could be that: it's fun, it has a good world and good soundtrack.
if you are looking for a game to get lost in a world where you have to know how to organize things, have exciting fights and spend a lot of time exploring a vast world that seems to have no end and you always will get new things to see, this game will meet your needs!