izigame.me

A wonderful puzzle platformer despite its weaknesses, but those are what holds it back from really being a masterpiece.

The art, animation and music are all gorgeous. It is amazing how much detail has been put into every sprite and how fluid the animations are. The music is absolutely phenomenal and gives the game a very immersive surreal atmosphere, especially when combined with the visuals and the consistent thematic design.
The puzzles are quite unique and enjoyable while the platforming is balanced and reasonable. It manages to uphold a very consistent level of challenge that is stimulating without being frustrating or unfair.
There are a lot of things to collect and the game has been designed to force you to replay the level multiple times to get them all, but the levels are each relatively short and so replaying them isn't even a negative experience. Often players have to approach the level in a different way to get all the collectibles which adds to the variety of the replay as well.

There is a degree of roughness to the polish of the game that shows up from time to time. Noticeable glitches every few levels, the Tanuki are way too mechanically unrefined in comparison to how demanding at least one puzzle is which requires you to manipulate them to progress. And there is that one jump in the dark caves, which requires the player to jump at an exact specific frame at the very edge of the block just to make it and progress.
The game explains very little to the player, and several things such as quest items and useable items are totally unexplained. Which makes it a trial and error process to learn what each useable item does, and you do have to buy another each time you use it. While the quest items remained completely unexplained. There are multiple secret paths which lead to entirely new levels, but you only unlock them by finding secrets in other levels nearby. So if you do not find the secret, you just miss out on the special level and or have to run around adjacent levels messing around looking for a secret that could be anywhere.

The second greatest weakness of the game is the boss battles. There are only four, and they are each very underwhelming. They try to incorporate the games existing mechanics into the fight, but totally fumble it and it just becomes a relatively easy lukewarm momentary pseudo fight. It feels like the developer literally just could not come up with any passionate, inspired ideas for boss fights and they just did whatever they could manage to come up with. The fights are extremely anticlimactic and just awkward while only providing slight difficulty; usually from the fight gimmick being unrefined.
The greatest weakness of the game though is the lack of any story. The game is so meticulous in building a vibrant, genuine world and yet the world is completely empty of characters or plot. A massive opportunity missed, players have no idea why the protagonist is running around doing what they are doing. And it ends with the player having no idea why they just did everything they did. The whole time, they never actually talk to anything and there is never any sense of purpose to what is happening. No conversations with interesting, quirky folklore characters and no weird child in a fantasy world plot unfolding from level to level. Two things that could have been done, and would of added so much onto the world and the overall experience, but were not.

For seven dollars the value is fantastic especially for such an intricate and detailed experience. But it is just so unfortunate that the lack of compelling boss fights and any kind of narrative creates such a giant hole in the experience. Absolutely devastating for a game that had so much potential beyond being more then just a generic indie puzzle platformer, but didn't take the steps to go the full way.
If you're interested in finding more games like this I've probably reviewed quite a few on my curator page here .