izigame.me

I'm going to be completely transparent with this review. I believe I enjoyed to game overall, but my feelings are carried mostly by the game's atmosphere, characters, story, and art style. The core game play constantly annoyed and bored me. I enjoyed the game the most when exploring new areas. The areas and scenery are amazing. The story is interesting to follow, although I found myself getting bored near the end with constant backtracking. Metroidvania's are supposed to excel with backtracking, but this game makes it feel like a chore. You will run all the way to the beginning of the game, just to open a door and have a single platform section while your expectations were much higher. The enemies are very well designed, but some become annoying walls that force you to stop and fight each time you want to pass. However my biggest gripe is with the bosses. I have played my share of souls-like games and I understand the importance of the bosses. The bosses in this game are amazing visually, but the fight itself is very unsatisfying. You are basically fighting meat bags that take hit after hit while you only have a few choices of attacks. Most of the late game bosses turn into hit-and-run strategies. You get very small opening of attacks and they punish you for going for a full combo. When it comes to the final hit that kills the boss, I felt more satisfied that it was over rather than satisfied that I killed a "hard boss." The worst thing about this was how contrast the final boss was to the rest. It was a literal pushover. After I fought it, I was staring at the screen saying "that's it?" The true ending at least adds on to the fight, but it only helps so much.
-----------------------------------TLDR-----------------------------------
PROS: Amazing scenery, atmosphere, art style, character/enemy design
CONS: Boring repetitive combat, lack of mobility, unsatisfying bosses extremely underwhelming final boss fight.
Basically get the game if you don't need to have an engaging combat system. The story and world that you explore makes this game good enough for purchasing and trying out.