This is an action-adventure. Move with left-stick, use item (including your sword) with X, swap equipped item with the shoulder buttons (can also be done in the item menu), and the A button is kinda a dodge/boost forward move except you're stunned for a split second at the end. Even though your attack animation is just a basic stab like in the original Legend of Zelda for NES, you still can't move until the attack is over.

Still, the game is really easy. If you've played the demo, the game doesn't get much more difficult than that. Enemies are sparse with basic patterns, while level design is little more than "room" and "hall." Before you know it, you'll be in a dungeon, and before you know it, you'll be at the dungeon's boss. The second dungeon makes you think things are starting to pick up when it introduces an enemy that can shoot at you (in the same room as melee enemies coming towards you, meaning you'll be locked in an attack animation before you notice the bullet coming towards you), but that enemy never shows up again except for the optional endless mode in postgame (which also has a couple exclusive enemies that really could've benefitted from being used in the main campaign). Also, a lot of the gameplay is fetch quests (which you'll need to do to unlock the final boss's second form), and while the game world isn't exacly large, the sparseness of areas combined with lack of fast-travel still makes them pretty tedious to do. It's like the grass area in Anodyne, except that's the whole game instead of just the central hub area.

There are some bosses, but they don't liven things up much. The first boss charges at you, so you avoid it and stab it when it's stunned (or you can try to launch the bombs in the arena at it to do more damage at once). The second boss abruptly transitions from standstill to rolling, bouncing off the walls; I still ended up taking more damage blowing myself up with the bombs, though (they explode when touching a hole). The third boss (and the two minibosses before it) also charge at you like the first boss; only difference with the third boss is that the arena border is hazardous to you, so you can only really attack by launching bombs at the boss. Finally, level design! The fourth dungeon has objects that look similar to bobms, but will actually set fire to anything near them when activated, including you, but you still need to catch yourself on fire to burn the barricate blocking the item that lets you catch yourself on fire without taking damage. The fourth dungeon's boss has an instantaneous melee stab like you do, being both a cheap hit as well as the first time in the game where the dodge/boost is useful. The fifth (final) boss has a similar attack, but the boss's pattern as a whole is easier to figure out. Phase two (which, again, you only unlock if you do most of the sidequests) has the boss floating at the top of the screen while you're going across rooms on the bottom to find where you can counterattack; the rooms themselves don't have any enemies/hazards, and the boss gives you a good bit of time between attacks, but when those attacks start back up, you gotta stop what you're doing to dodge them since they don't give you much room for error (and can be kinda cheap, like how the laser won't show you where it's aiming until after it fires). After beating the game (whether or not you unlocked the final bos's second phase), you unlock the afoermentioned endless mode, which gives you exclusive powerups that last until your run ends, as well as an exclusive boss if you make it far enough (which isn't hard to do, but the boss itself has some cheap hits that you most likely won't be able to avoid unless you know they're coming). There's a second room that unlocks after you beat the game, but it just has a heart container as far as I can tell.

Overall, I don't think I'd recommend this game. When it isn't basic and boring, it's because of cheap hits. Maybe if you already have the game or can get it free (like on Game Pass), but I wouldn't recommend buying it.

Hack ‘n’ slash. A button dodges, X and Y do nebulously-different attacks, and B is case sensitive (does a finishing move if the enemy’s health is low enough, does a spin-around-the-pole attack if you’re next to a pole, etc.). This genre can already have slow combat, but this game in particular seems like each individual attack in your combos take longer than other hack ‘n’ slashes; even after you get the sword, only your first hit is fast and responsive, with the rest of the combo slowing back down. The bow has a faster rate of continuous fire, but it still takes a solid half-second between hitting the button and actually shooting your first arrow.

I admit I’ve never been a big fan of the hack ‘n’ slash genre, but I gave this game a chance because I saw projectile enemies in the trailer and thought the game might have more SHMUP influence, if not actual level design. Turns out, no, the spread shot is as complicated as it gets, and you just dodge through it like all the other attacks. Most of the game is still just fighting off waves of melee enemies and some ranged enemies that toss single-shots at you (the most complicated this ever gets is when the ranged enemies offset their shots to the spot you’re running towards instead of shooting where you are). The water palace level introduces a couple more enemy types, like eyeballs that shoot sustained lasers for a second, but even those new enemies start to get repetitive after the tenth time you fight four of them at once without any other enemies or hazards or level design in the arena.

The jumping is also automatic like in Assassin’s Creed. Not only does this eliminate any potential platforming challenge, it also results in game-breaking bugs: there’s a part where you have to climb up wood paneling around a giant statue, and shortly after you take the elevator up to the first part of the climb, there’s a wood wall that you obviously need to do a wall-run up it to reach the ledge above you. Thing is, the wall-run button is the same as the dodge button, so the first few times I tried doing what I was supposed to, my character just kept dodge-rolling into the wall. I even started to think that wasn’t what the game wanted me to do and tried other things futilely, until the wall-run randomly decided to work and I could progress.

But it’s not just combat and parkour; the game also has arbitrary switch hunts! Shortly after making it to level 3, you’ll reach a spot where the gap between platforms is too far to jump across. Turns out, you have to go into the background and examine a random flower, and that gives you the ability to toss a platform between the two ledges so you can reach the other side. The game makes you do this a bunch, and there are a few times where it’ll look like you can make it with just one spawned platform, but the automatic platforming decides that you can’t make that second jump and you die, so you have to spawn a second platform on your next attempt.

There’s also a stealth segment, but the game’s idea of increasing difficulty is simply having the guard looking at where you’re hiding longer each time you make it to a new hiding spot. You can literally go get your phone and start looking at memes online while waiting for the guard to turn its back on you.

In the last level, you get a homing attack that’s also much more powerful than your other weapons, so you just start using that against the repetitive enemy mobs. The cutscene before the final boss says something like “you’ll need to use everything you learned,” but what I learned is that I can just keep using that homing attack while focusing on dodging, making the fight pretty easy (though it still takes a while due to the boss’s HP).

And to top it off, the game has a bad ending. There wasn’t any implication of a good ending, but if there is one, it probably involves collecting all the glowing orbs, but they’re not exactly hidden; they’re just at the dead ends of obvious split paths, so if you go the wrong way, you progress the level and miss them. There also isn’t a level select or anything so you can just go back to get the ones you missed; you’re sent back to the beginning after you beat the game.

Not recommended.

Turn-based RPG with timing/button prompts to temporarily increase your attack/defense on that turn. If you liked the first two Paper Mario games and you want more of the same, this game is for you because I can't think of a single combat microgame that wasn't lifted straight from The Thousand-Year Door. Damage output is also similar with everything being relatively low numbers; increasing your attack by 1 is rather significant when your base damage is 2 and miniboss HP is 50. You'll even find medals (the game's equivalent to badges) that you can equip to gain bonuses like giving a party member status-effect immunity or an extra turn at the start of each battle. Levelling up also gives you the same three choices each time: increase HP by one, increase TP (the game's equivalent to MP) by 3, or increase medal capacity by 3. Leveling up never increases your attack, but enemies have power-creep, so you'll eventually have to start adding points to HP. To top it off, the overworld even has some light platforming, though your drop shadow won't display on certain terrain (like ice and spikes), and it can be tough to see forward with the rest of your party behind you, blocking your view:

That said, there's no combat penalty for falling off (you don't lose HP or anything; you just get teleported back to an earlier platform like in Guacamelee

The main difference between this game and Paper Mario is that you have three party members in-battle instead of two, and you only ever have those three party members for the whole game (except a couple brief parts where you have a fourth, AI-controlled partner). There aren't even inter-chapter segments where you control other characters, which I bring up because the most memorable part of the first Paper Mario to me was sneaking around the castle as Peach (something that was even in the sequel, albeit poorly rehashed). Because it's just those three characters for the whole game, combat can get repetitive, as it's the same three microgames for basic attacks over and over (even if you use TP-consuming moves, which usually have different combat microgames from Paper Mario, it's still just those same moves each time). You also have Turn Relay, so you can give one character's move to another so said character can move twice or three times in one turn; the catch is that each successive move-per-turn decreases your attack by one point.

Oh, there's also a bulletin board to list all available sidequests (or at least most of them; only a few sidequests are started by talking to the NPC instead of checking the bulletin board). From what I can tell, you can't permanently-miss a sidequest, and there aren't any points-of-no-return, so you don't have to worry about missing anything (although there are a couple dungeons that get blocked off once you beat them, which is irritating since there's a certain item you can only buy from a place that gets barricaded, so if you run out of that item afterward, you can't go back and get any more). You can even find key items for sidequests before starting them (though you have to take the job from the bulletin board before you can complete the sidequest).

In the overworld, you switch between characters with X and use their attack/field power with B, which is backwards but can't be changed (you can only rebind keyboard controls). At first, it seemed like you couldn't gain the initiative in battle (even though enemies could), but then I noticed that there is a bonus for getting battle initiative: one character has one extra move on that first turn, complete with the attack penalty associated with Turn Relay. It's not nothing, but the attack penatly can make it tricky to utilize that extra move, especially if you're already full on HP and TP and the enemy has high defense.

One of the first medals you get is the Hard Mode medal, which doesn't tell you the difference between normal and hard mode. I don't remember if The Thousand Year Door had a hard mode badge (I think it did), but either way, this game's hard mode is quite a bit harder than Paper Mario. Unfortunately, part of that difficulty is from cheap hits, where you won't know the timing until after it happens. Sure, sometimes the attack is a projectile heading towards you at a fixed speed, but other times, the enemy runs right up next to you and holds a pose before cutting to the "you've been hit" frame (and different poses are held for different lengths of time). Similarly, some enemies, such as the rock spiders in the sand castle, will stay on their side and glow for a bit, when suddenly BAM: you're hit with a lightning bolt. Heck, even the fixed-speed projectiles can be cheap since their speed changes based on who is being targeted. The first boss has an attack where you have to tap the button to fill up a bar to block the attack, but since this is the first time you encounter an attack like this, it'll catch you off guard and you won't be able to fill up the meter in time on your first go (and the second time a "tap A to fill the bar" attack happens, is partway through chapter 3, where its long absence and sudden return will catch you off guard again). Still, the worst is the boss at the end of chapter 3: it shoots a laser straight down and spins it clockwise towards your party, so you hit the button when the laser reaches you, right? NOPE; the laser doesn't damage you and disappears when it points straight horizontally, at which point there are ground eruptions that head towards your party, and THAT'S when you're supposed to hit the button. What makes it especially frustrating is that whenever I instinctively tried to block the laser, the game wouldn't let be block the eruptions afterward.

Also, while the party members that aren't targeted by an attack become transparent for the attack's duration, they don't go transparent enough to tell at a glance, and some attacks zoom in on the enemy so you can't tell who's being targeted regardless until a split second before the attack hits you.

Adding to the volatility of difficulty is how status effects work. The good news is if an enemy can cause a status effect and you block the attack, you don't get the status effect, wheras getting hit without blocking always gives you the status effect. The bad news is that your own status-effecting attacks don't have such a guarantee. Instead of said attacks being cooldown-based or something like a reasonable strategy game, it's always a chance to freeze, a chance to poison; you can never be sure if a boss is immune or if you've just been getting really unlucky until the effect finally takes hold after several successful implementations of the attack. Wasn't the whole point of the combat microgames to remove chance and make it the player's fault if an attack does more/less damage? It seems like this goes against the core of what the Paper Mario games were trying to accomplish with their gameplay (I always did prefer Superstar Saga).

Minor issue, but the store that sells medals only displays three at a time; in order to see more, you have to talk to the store owner for a few text boxes, then select the third option when presented with your dialogue choice (so you can't just tap the A button), and even then, it just randomizes the badges displayed, so it can take a couple tries before you see anything new, let alone something you'd want to buy. New medals are added regularly throughout story progression, but you're not told so you have to check manually.

Another mechanic taken from Paper Mario is what the game calls "spy": it starts with a microgame like your attack moves, but succeeding gives you some text talking about the targeted enemy, usually having a bit of worldbuilding as well as telling you or hinting towards what the enemy can do. It also display's that enemy's HP, even in future battles. There is one major difference between this game's spying and its equivalent; in Paper Mario, only one character could do the move, and you'd get several text boxes that let you know exactly what the enemy can do. Meanwhile, in this game, all three characters can spy, but the game won't always tell you everything, or even properly describe what it is trying to tell you. The worst example is against the bandit leader; minor spoilers, but if you spy on him with the blue character, you get this:

"Break our items"…I don't know about you, but to me, that implies the boss--on its own turn--can use an attack that will destroy an item if you don't block said attack properly (blocking prevents other status effects like sleep/poison/frozen/paralysis, so why would this be any different?). Besides, I had a medal equipped that said something to the effect of "prevents enemies from stealing your items," so I thought I was safe either way.

However, that's not what it means. What actually happens is that if you try to use an item, the boss will counter with an unblockable attack, destroying your item and costing you that character's move, as well as damaging you further. Okay, fine, I can just freeze the boss and then use an item when the boss can't do anything, right? NOPE! This boss is the only enemy in the entire game that can break the rules of status effects to get out of being frozen prematurely, and it only happens if you try to use an item while the boss is frozen; do anything else, and the boss stays frozen just fine. Tell me, how was I supposed to glean the boss's magical ice-breaking powers from the above text?

Ah, but wait! The other characters have different text, even when spying on the same enemy. Maybe they also give you different information, like the navigators in Mega Man X8? That could add an extra layer of strategy to spying, as well as give further characterization to your party members based on who notices what. So, I went to the game's boss re-fighter (which presumably exists so you can't permanently-miss these infodumps like you could in Metroid Prime), spied on the boss with the other two characters, and got this:

"Crushes our items." "Ruining my items." Yeah, they all still have the same misleading implication. On one hand, you don't have to worry about spying with the "wrong" character since they all basically say the same stuff, but on the other hand, the vague text means that spying is effectively useless outside of revealing enemys' HP.

Speaking of the bandit camp, that area is where you get the dig ability (similar to Paper Mario, you get different overworld abilities to reach different parts of the game as you progress), and once you've beaten the bandit leader, you're done with that area and you don't have to use that ability again for the rest of the chapter and a decent chunk of the next chapter, but when you do, it's a spot where the ground texture is different and also covers the entire platform, giving almost no clues that you have to use your dig power again or that you can even dig on this terrain. In that same area, you get trapped on a small platform, and you're clearly supposed to get a new power to destroy the rocks, but unlike the other times you get a new power in this game, the cutscene doesn't happen automatically; you have to examine the rocks with the jump button, which is indicated by a ? bubble (as opposed to the ! bubbles, which indicate you can attack the object, which is done with the field-power button).

Despite playing the entire game on hard mode, I felt the difficulty curve was a bit wonky. It's solid for the first three or four chapters, but then it gets easier around chapters five and six, with the chapter 6 boss and a couple more-or-less hidden optional bosses picking things up. Chapter 7 isn't really hard per se, but you do have to go back and heal since using TP-consuming moves is the only way to get through encounters without losing much health (enemies stay dead as long as you stay in the dungeon). The final boss is quite a difficulty spike, and not just because I used the last of the item-from-the-blocked-off-area I had on the chapter 6 boss: the first phase isn't too bad (though I did reach max level shortly beforehand), but you'll want to save your items for the second phase, where it can summon allies (including a shield that straight-up doesn't have a health bar; you have to do trial-and-error to figure out that ANY attack only ever deals 1 damage, and it takes 3 hits to destroy) and it heals itself the first two times it gets low on HP. I did manage to beat the boss on hard mode without any of the item-from-the-blocked-off-area, but it wasn't so much strategy/medal-reequipping so much as I took advantage of an exploit in its pattern that--of course--isn't told to you by spying (specifically, the final boss is significantly less likely to summon allies if you end your turn with the boss knocked on the ground; what makes this extra tricky is that the final boss is the only enemy in the entire game where some of your attacks can knock the boss back into the air from the ground).

Overall, this game is okay. If you liked the Paper Mario games--or really any RPG that had timing/button prompts in combat--you'll probably like this game, too. Wait for a sale.

This is a hybrid platformer/beat ‘em up. I’m yet to play one of these where combat is decently combined with level design; instead, they all have the enemies and enemy waves separate from the jumping parts. The only exception in this game is the casino level near the beginning that has ranged enemies on pedestals floating beside the main path.

Throughout the game, you’ll get different powers that can be equipped to any of the four shoulder buttons (including your basic melee and ranged attacks). It works fine enough, but it can be annoying having to reopen the menu so you can equip whatever power lets you get past the current switch hunt. Despite levels being very linear, almost all of them have split paths that require later powers to reach. One such power is even obtained after the game’s first implied point of no return, so there’s no incentive to try to look for secrets until you’ve beaten the game cuz you won’t know what you can’t get due to abilities you don’t have.

On the platforming side, the drop-shadow can be surprisingly hard to see sometimes. I had to turn shadows off in the first level so I could better see the drop shadow.

On the beat ‘em up side, things can be inconsistent. It starts off with you being able to go up to enemies and tap the attack button, but later on, even basic enemies get the ability to automatically dodge your first couple attacks. More frustratingly, you can see an enemy’s foreshadow animation and dodge away, but then the enemy can counter by boosting forward while attacking to hit you anyway. I honestly don’t know if it’s even possible to avoid certain attacks. It’s possible to buy badges that increase your attack power, but you gotta be careful because they also have rank requirements; you can buy a badge but be unable to equip it if your rank is too low.

Besides both of those are switch hunts and hidden-object segments. Often, you’ll have no idea what to look for, and the game doesn’t always tell you what to do if you take too long. For example, there are literal switches in the mail level, but they blend into the cluttered surroundings and can be missed easily. In the PSI-King’s level, the game introduces walls that you can get rid of by tossing a ball at them, but whenver I encountered these walls afterward, I never found another ball and had to jump around said walls (which is doable, but I don’t think was intended).

I don’t know why, but the game crashed on me regularly, always when loading something (whether a new area or an alternate version of an object, like a painting being set on fire). This would inevitably set me back a few minutes, as the game doesn’t always autosave when you complete an area.

The bosses were mostly okay, but I took issue with the plant boss since the game starts the battle with you on a raft and tells you that you can switch between two lanes, but it doesn’t make it clear where those lanes are, so it looks like the spikey islands are on the other lane instead of between them. I also had a problem with the final boss’s tornado/whirlpool/cyclone form since it’s path is hard to predict and it moves faster than you can, even if you’re on the levitation ball.

Overall, this game was okay. It doesn’t do much noteworthy from a gameplay perspective, but if you liked the first Psychonauts, you’ll probably like this game. Get it on sale, though.

P.S. There’s a trigger warning at the beginning, but I’m not sure how much it’s needed. For example, one of the potential triggers listed is panic attacks, but “Panic Attack” is just the name of an enemy in the game. Sure, you’ll hear voice clips of an NPC panicking during your first couple battles against said enemy, but other games have also had voice clips of characters panicking while enemies are attacking, and those games didn’t have trigger warnings, so I dunno.

This is one of those twinstick shooters where the bullets move realistically fast and melee enemies just form mobs and run towards you. The first level ONLY has those melee mobs, with level design being little more than “hall” and “room.” The major innovation here is that the mobs can sometimes sidestep your shots before resuming their shamble towards you. The first boss adds a bit of variety, since it can leap forward (you have to dodge out of the way, even though this is a twinstick shooter and dodging is mapped to the A button) and toss grenades, but then you beat the boss and it’s back to braindead, lazily-programmed enemies. The second level introduces ranged enemies, who also form mobs but don’t always rush to the ledge you’re ducking behind; they can surround you, and as soon as they decide to open fire, you get hit with no warning or way to dodge. I made it all the way to the part where you have to “hold the fort”, but even when I got past the initial blitz of ranged enemies, it sent two larger enemies at me who joined forces with the ranged mob, and I couldn’t figure out how to get past it after several failed attempts, so I gave up.

Not recommended.

The game advertises itself as a hybrid metroidvania/third-person shooter, but a huge chunk of the game is Walking Simulator. Rooms are massive with only basic platforming and maybe one enemy every 5-10 minutes on average. Speaking of enemies, combat sucks: you hold LT to aim and push RT to shoot, and you can't shoot if you're not aiming, but aiming slows you down so you can't dodge, and flying enemies attack too quickly for you to switch between them, so you just gotta take the hits to take them down. The graphics/lighting are also pretty bad, as it can sometimes be hard to know if there's a platform or an abyss below you. There's also an attempt at puzzles with switches activating and deactivating different pipes, but the game doesn't explain how it works and the level design doesn't do a great job of conveying how it works, either. The devs must know this, too, because it introduces a "hacking" mechanic where you can spend shards you get from slain enemies in order to toggle cubes/pipes without having to hit their corresponding switches, effectively letting you bypass whatever the puzzle was supposed to be.

The game is also aimless. Good metroidvanias railroad you at least a little bit so you don't miss necessary abilities. In this game, after I got to the central hub area, I chose to go to the green section first, and when I finally reached the boss room after two massive, near-empty rooms, I was met with a gap I couldn't double-jump across, so I had to backtrack to the central hub (which wasn't as fast as you might think since the game has fall damage) and tried the red area, which managed to have one enemy every 30-60 seconds on average. Also, in this section, pipes can also toggle enemy spawners instead of just progression, so now you have to stop solving the puzzle in order to shoot down some flying enemies, then try to remember where you were before more spawn.

The bosses also suck: the boss of the red area has far-reaching flamethrowers and moves faster than you can move; I only won because running back to the entrance gate as soon as the boss is triggered caused it to stay in the boss arena where I could shoot it safely from afar. The green boss was a bit better since it moves slow enough you can run away, but it gets faster as the fight goes on, giving you less and less time to counterattack (also, I'm pretty sure it has some fast attacks that you have to get lucky to dodge).

After finishing the red and green areas, I went to the purple area, which has more focus on platforming, but it's still just small platforms over an abyss…without a drop shadow. Plus, if you miss a jump (which will happen quite a bit due to the lack of a drop shadow), you have to fall aaaaaaall the way down to the "ground" before you die and respawn. Also, the purple area is split into two rooms: the first room gave me the triple jump, and I was able to complete it just fine, but the second area had the second platform too far away for me to triple jump and boost towards, so I tried the blue area and encountered the same issue. There's only one explanation: I missed the second boost powerup somewhere, and I am not going to wander around this empty game looking for it, so I gave up.

Not recommended.

This is a hybrid platformer/hack 'n' slash. Other hack 'n' slash games force you to a standstill while attacking, but this game takes it a step further and even locks you in midair if you attack while jumping (even if you use a ranged attack). Besides that, controls are almost good, but doing a rolling jump and letting go of forward doesn't stop you; you have to push backwards first. You also can't interrupt your attack animation to dodge, which is always something I hate about hack 'n' slashes. The game starts with a difficulty selection, but it doesn't tell you what the differences are, so its safe to assume it's something dumb like more enemy HP; I just played on normal mode.

When the game focuses on platforming, the level design is pretty decent. There are even environmental hazards that see regular use to help spice up the platforming (my favorite level is the acid rain one where you have to juggle jumping around thorns with reaching shelter before you start taking damage from the rain). However, as soon as any enemies show up, the level design flattens out to make room for the hack 'n' slash mechanics. Most enemies have ranged attacks, some that are unique to said enemy, but all enemies have the same melee attack, making combat repetitive outside boss fights (attack, dodge-roll, repeat). Whenever I didn't have to fight the enemies, I'd just run past them, never having to worry about taking damage because they take so long to attack. Some levels have a second exit, but even if you find the key (which is always in a different level) and replay the level to reach the locked door leading to said secret exit, you only unlock a "challenge" level that's just waves of enemies. After I beat the first challenge level, I stopped playing them and just focused on the regular levels.

As you progress, you'll get different elemental projectiles so you can freeze water or zap electrified enemies to nullify their elemental power. Problem is, you have to charge your shot before it gets imbued with your equipped element, and even if you buy the "speed up projectile charging" ability, it still takes a solid second of holding the button down before it's fully charged and can actually be used to freeze the water block in front of you (but not the one afterward; you'll need to charge another shot for that one).

On the subject of ice powers, there's a bunch of times where you push blocks to progress, and a bunch of times where you freeze water to progress, but there's one room in one level where a block is frozen, and pushing it causes it to slide forward continually. This didn't register as a tutorial until after I had tanked damage by pushing regular blocks through spikes, but when the thought finally did occur to me in a later level, I tried shooting a fully-charged ice projectile at a push-able block and nothing happened; it was just a gimmick for that one room in that one level.

In fact, the whole game is pretty gimmicky: only one level has the acid rain; only one level has the frozen pushable blocks; only one level has the hold-jump-to-float mechanic; one level in the last world looks like a dead end, but pushing the button in front of that hook that looks like a background object will bring you up to the next part of the level (and those hooks don't show up in another level). The only consistent part is the repetitive hack 'n' slash combat.

The graphics can also be iffy at times. The platforms in the final world are triangle shaped, pointing downward, but that pointed bottom also counts as a spike and hurts you if you jump into it from below. The ice boss's arena has some spikes in it as well, but they're the same color as the background and walls, so you won't notice them at first and will almost certainly get hurt by them:

One of the game's gimmicks is that "scourge" will take over a level and all other levels go into lockdown, so you have to replay the scourged level to progress. The scourged levels have some minor changes, mostly enemy placement or replacing swimmable-water with hazardous acid, but sometimes there's a floating axe chasing you, and you only have to replay a few rooms instead of the entire level. It's more like a light-world/dark-world type thing than recycled content. It also only happens maybe once per world, so it doesn't overstay its welcome, either.

Overall, the game is hard to recommend. Like I wrote earlier: it's decent when it focuses on platforming, but it becomes repetitive when combat is involved, and combat is involved A LOT.

Twinstick SHMUP. Pushing LT while moving does a dodge move, and holding RT shoots in the direction you're pointing the right stick. On top of a health bar, you have a fixed number of health potions, both of which get fully restored at each save point. So, why have health potions at all, then? Why not just combine them into a larger health bar? Because it takes a solid two seconds of holding the use-potion-button while at a standstill in order to successfully use them and recover health (it's possible to unsuccessfully use them and recover no health while also losing the potion…if you let go too quickly so you can dodge incoming attacks). This game also has a difficulty selection, but just like Flynn before it, there's no explanation for what's different, so I just played on normal mode.

The entire game, including the overworld, is broken up into rooms, and the vast majority of these rooms have enemies in them. Whenever you enter a room with enemies, the room goes into lockdown until all the enemies are killed, and they stay dead only until you save the game. The overworld also has level design so repetitive, it feels like a roguelite, with many rooms being exactly the same as others with the possible exception of the exit points being in different cardinal directions. Each zone has their own enemy types, but having to fight the same ones over and over gets very repetitive and tedious after some time (and the tree-root attack can be hard to see coming since it's a row of same-color-as-the-ground thorns popping out in a row instead of moving towards you).

The game doesn't have an experience system, but it still has RPG mechanics that throw off the balance and difficulty curve. Every time you reach a new save point, you get +1 defense, and I'm certain that many enemy encounters are not possible to get past without taking at least some damage due to the sheer amount of asynchronous bullet patterns being sprayed at you. Heck, the entrance to the lava zone straight up disables your dodge and forces you to tank a bunch of hits before you can progress. There's also a crafting system, and of course, you'll be able to craft better weapons with material from later zones. However, you won't always be able to craft an equivalent to your weapon of choice each time, so it's sometimes better just to stick with what you've got currently (as the short-range of certain weapons puts you in more danger than using a longer-range-but-weaker weapon). What makes this extra irritating is that your projectiles go away when they hit material deposits, but enemy projectiles go straight through them. To top it off, the only progression obstacle is at the end of the first zone; after that, you can go wherever, and you'll only know you went the wrong way when the enemies start kicking your butt. Even then, some areas were really difficult on my first go at them (like the desert and the forest); meanwhile, the semi-final boss and the final boss's three phases all went down pretty quickly.

It's not all bad, though: the dungeons have some actual level design in them, not only having pits/hazards in enemy rooms, but also having some rooms without any enemies that just focus on you dashing between platforms quickly. That said, the main difference between dungeon rooms and overworld rooms is that dungeon rooms have multiple waves of enemies, while overworld rooms only have one wave per room. The bosses are unique, but they can also have some cheap hits; notably, the ice dungeon boss dashes towards you almost as soon as the battle starts, and the only way to avoid it is to preemptively dash away as soon as the cutscene ends (and then keep dashing away cuz the boss will keep dashing towards you for a bit). Also, despite the crowd of bullets that are regularly sent your way, you can only dodge three times before you need to wait a few seconds for your dodge ability to recharge.

The game also has badges you can equip, which have different effects like giving you an extra dash or reducing an enemy's defense. The badges themselves work fine, but I really like how most of them are earned through little avoid-em-up minigames, where you have to dodge different shot patterns while chasing a crystal that moves to a random part of the arena each time you reach it. Unfortunately, to find said avoid-em-up minigames, you have to explore the overworld, which means even more repetitive lockdown segments (even more annoying when it's the enemies that can heal themselves).

Overall, this game is hard to recommend. On one hand, the combat can be kinda fun sometimes, but it can also get repetitive after a while (and kinda cheap at times, too). Wait for a sale.

First thing's first: yes, I beat this game single-player. Yes, I'm insane, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, you should know that you won't be able to play the game with just a keyboard or two; one character HAS to use a controller (the other character can use KB&M, though).

As for genre, this is another multi-genre game. There's some platforming parts, some beat 'em up parts, some walking sim parts, even some third-person-shooter parts, but the thing you'll be doing most often are switch hunts. There will be a door that only one character can open, so that character goes up to the door and holds the "open door" button, waits for the other character to pass, then goes through and lets the door close behind them. Whenever there is some timing required in the levels, you can almost always just go as one character, then switch to the other character once the first is safe on the other side. Even when the timing requires both characters, it's almost never simultaneously; for example, in the first level, there's a switch you need to hit to send a spark across a wire, but there are gaps you need to fill with the characters themselves in order to get the spark across. Thing is, when the spark hits the character in the first gap, that character can't move until the spark hits the second character in the second gap, effectively eliminating any pretense of simultaneous timing (you can just switch controllers once you get the character in the necessary gap). Shortly afterward, you encounter the first instance of simultaneous timing, and it's just hitting a single button while rail-grinding (which automatically moves your character forward); all you have to do is get both characters on the rails (not even at the same time because the rails are different lengths), then have one hand on one character's button and your other hand on the other character's button.

By far the hardest part of the game to do alone is, ironically, the first boss. All of a sudden, your characters have health bars, and dying results in a meter slowly filling before said character can respawn (you can tap the button to make the character come back faster, but it isn't necessary). The boss is wait-to-attack, so you have to jump over shockwaves and move to avoid stuff being thrown at you. During the latter part of the fight, the boss will even send out both shockwaves and projectiles at the same time! Eventually, the vaccum pops up from the ground, and you need one character to suck up the projectiles while the other character aims at the boss. This is tricky enough, but if even one character dies when the vaccum is close to popping up, the vaccuum actually goes away much faster than it otherwise would, making you wait through another volley of shockwaves and projectiles (I think at one point I triggered a glitch where the boss just did nothing except constantly send out shockwaves). No other boss in the game is this unforgiving. Also, If both characters die at the same time, the entire boss fight resets to the beginning. It's the closest the game ever comes to actually taking two, but I was able to beat the boss on my own after several attempts.

After this, the game goes back to being really easy. One character gets the ability to toss nails at slots to reveal platforms, and at first I was like "oh cool, puzzle mechanics," but then I realized that the nails aren't always recalled in the same order, and you're supposed to aim at the nail to choose which specific one you want to recall so you can shoot it and reveal the next platform. The second boss is also a wait-to-attack, but it's way easier since its vulnerable state always lasts the same amount of time, no matter when you die. Also, when the platforming gets mildly complicated during phase transitions, you can always just focus on keeping one character alive while letting the other die and respawn. Heck, some of the boss's attacks only target one character at a time instead of both simultaneously (notably, the shovel slam). There is still a bit of co-op here: the first phase has you toss the nails as one character while the other uses them to reach the boss's weak points, then the second phase (which has a permanent checkpoint at the start) requires you to have one character stand on the shovel while the other uses the hammer to launch the first character, who can then toss nails at the boss's new weak point. The timing can be pretty tight, but it's doable.

When you reach level 3, you lose the nails and hammer, leading you to realize each level is gonna have its own gimmick (the vacuums never show up again after the first level). After a fairly lengthy walking-sim segment that doesn't even pretend to take two, you get your abilities for level 3: one character gets a sap gun (which can weigh stuff down), and the other gets a harpoon (which causes the sap to explode when shot). Again, much of the gameplay is very basic, like when you have to shoot a bit of sap on the side of the plus-shaped platforms so they rotate and let the other character pass. However, you have to fight some enemies, and this is where the level gets…a little bit better, because the harpoons won't damage the enemies directly; they have to be sapped first so the harpoon explodes them. There's a miniboss with a shield, and this is where the game really slows down and gets repetitive because not only is it a single enemy targeting a single character at a time, but the shield effectively makes it a wait-to-attack boss since you have to keep dodging until it stops turning around and lets you shoot it…with one character, then it targets the other character, where you repeat the process and can finally deal damage to it, and that process keeps repeating (at least four times for both characters) until the miniboss is finally dead. The worst part is this isn't even a situation where having another player would make the fight faster; you HAVE to wait. The level has another miniboss afterward, but this one's way better since it doesn't have a shield and you can shoot it whenever. IIRC It even has some projectile attacks instead of just charging at a random character, adding some much-needed variety to the combat (even if it's still easy to dodge on an individual basis). There's a raft segment where one character steers the boat while the other shoots at hazards floating down the river, and while it seems tricky at first, you'll soon realize you can just hug the left wall and avoid almost all the hazards (the exit is on the left side, anyway). Then the game introduces cyclones, but they won't damage your raft; they just toss your characters up, and you have to fall back on the raft (or not, 'cuz even if you miss with both, they'll just respawn on the raft, wherever it is). The beetle miniboss isn't quite a wait-to attack, but you have to fill one of the slots around the arena with sap, then lure the miniboss over and shoot the sap when it gets near to damage it. After this is an autorunning segment, but your jumps are a bit lower and quicker than you'd expect given the length of the obstacles you need to jump over; turns out you have to push the jump button later than you'd think, even seeing your ride clip through the obstacles without taking damage. The boss of level 3 isn't too bad on paper, but it can take a long time to kill, especially since--once again--you have to sap it before harpooning, but now walls of enemies can get in your way, so you gotta sap and harpoon all of them first, and the latter part of the fight takes place on a constant rail-grind, making it that much harder to aim.

Even after you beat the boss, this little section of the game isn't quite over because next is a flying segment: one character steers the plane (WASD) while the other character aims and shoots the gun at enemies and obstacles (right stick and RT). What makes it extra tricky is that enemies can appear behind you, but the tunnels twist around just enough that you still have to pay attention to where you're steering, often forcing you to blind-fire (I wonder if this is how it feels to play Star Fox Zero?). Other times, it's just a room of catapults on the floor, so you can point the gun forward and down and hold the shoot button and be fine. At the end of this flying segment is a fighting game boss, and I've never liked fighting games so I was already predisposed to hating this part, but on top of keeping track of punching, kicking, and jumping, you still have to steer the plane so you don't crash into the walls. I'm sure the fighting game mechanics are quite basic anyway (especially since this is the only fighting game segment in the whole game), but I suspect it also has dynamic difficulty because when I won, all the boss's attacks could be avoided by simply jumping, and its health seemed to go down a lot quicker than in previous attempts. No more plane segments after this, by the way.

The next level is the outer space level, and its gimmick is that one character can change size and the other character can walk on anti-gravity platforms. This level ends up being mostly switch hunts and some basic timing, the worst being when you have to turn the wheel to lower the springboard, but you can't turn it back all the way or you'll launch the other character into the hazard ceiling, so you gotta do trial and error to figure out where/when to stop turning. I also encountered a bug where the size-changing character clipped through a wall and ceiling and got stuck, so I had to redo that entire segment (including the trial-and-error wheel turning):

On my next attempt, I encountered another glitch: there's a grapple point that takes both characters across a gap once they've both latched on, and at the end, it slows down and shows one character on the left (away from the platform) and the other on the right (towards the platform). If you try to jump as the character closest to the platform as soon as you regain control, you'll actually be pulled backwards because you don't get control until after the momentum starts pushing you away from the platform. No problem, you can just re-grapple the grapple point and try jumping off again, right? Nope; if you re-grapple this specific grapple point, you get soft-locked onto the grapple point and can only pause the game. So yeah, I had to redo this section again.

The boss of this level finally brings back some action elements: one character gets constantly chased by a laser while the other character has to find and stand on a switch that reveals the weak point, then the first character lures the laser to the weak point to damage the boss. Since the arena is circular, you can just hold left or right while tapping dodge (this moves the targeted character in a circle), then focus on finding the switch as the other character. The boss's second phase has it shoot missiles at you, but this part is way easier since you just have to run/dodge away until the missile hits the ground, then you can hop on and ride it into the boss to damage it. The third phase doesn't even have the pretense of co-op since it's just one character doing a platforming segment while the other one waits around, maybe avoiding some lasers but it isn't necessary. I always find it hard to justify a game when the experience can be accurately replicated by watching someone else play, cuz that's basically what you'd be doing if you're the character not in the platforming segment. The fourth phase has one character moving a flying saucer around while the other character aims the gun; the radar on the gun character's screen is how you find where the boss is, and the left character's screen isn't necessary at all since the boss also shows up on the radar when in view.

Next is the toy level, and this might be the worst level in the game. Near the beginning, there's a math segment where an equation shows up on the board, and you have to figure out that the numbers you stand on control the numbers on the question side, not the answer side. Still, not too bad, but it's followed by a memory/card matching segment. The switch hunts are bad enough, but this…this is downright offensive (possibly even the worst part of any game I've ever played, and I beat Sonic and the Secret Rings). Not only is it trial-and-error distilled into its purest, laziest form, but it's also exclusively a single-player experience! Wasn't the game's whole foundational concept co-op? The most charitable read is that the publisher mandated the game's length be 16 hours 52 minutes but the game was only 16 hours 51 minutes and the game was due to release in an hour. For real, what's the other player supposed to do? Hitting the cards along with the first player will just have them flip over quicker, making it harder to remember which card is where. I guess the other player is just supposed to stand there and wait…maybe help the first player remember which cards are where? I don't know about you, but I don't need help remembering simple things like that. Anyway, after the math segment is a memory/card matching segment, and let me tell you, this part is downright offensive--

Okay, for real, the next segment is a connect-the-dots segment, and the devs' totally-not-stupid idea for turning this into a co-op activity is that one character controls horizontal movement and the other controls vertical movement. That's it. The hardest part is figuring out which spotty text is #20. Next is a tilt-table where you roll a ball around some holes by moving the characters to shift the board's weight. It works okay, but is once again pretty basic. Afterward is a platforming segment, and this is probably the second-hardest part if you're playing by yourself. It starts with just the entrance platform and a block with the number 1 on it, but as soon as you jump on the 1 block, it starts sinking and the 2 block shows up. Plus, the entrance platform also retracts, so both characters need to be jumping across at the same time, each block sinking and producing the next platform upon your characters landing. I tried dozens of times, trying to alternate between them and trying to control both at once. The furthest I made it alternating is getting one character on block 6, but I'd miss the jump as the other character and have to start over. Eventually, I thought to check the options, and sure enough, you can turn off automatic camera rotation. Doing this makes the section so much easier; now, you can have both characters' cameras facing the end wall, then move both of them at once, just focus on pointing them in the direction of the next platform without having to worry about the camera reorienting itself differently (in fact, this probably would've made the first boss quite a bit easier as well). Still really tough alone (took me about another dozen tries), but entirely doable and fair. This is more what I was expecting from a game built around co-op, not those garbage switch hunts or that fucking brainless memory/matching segment.

The game must've known the numbered-blocks segment would be too much intensity for its target audience of people-who-don't-like-playing-games, so the difficulty goes down even from the co-op version of it, as the next section just has one character ground-pound a switch while the other stands on the spring that the switch activates; once in the air, you just grapple the grapple point and wait for it to take you across, then repeat with the ground pound switches on the other side to get the other character across. Then, you finally get this level's gimmick: spinners that lift you high into the air and let you float down (one for each character; no asynchronous multiplayer here!). You use them to find and turn gears.

…okay, there's also a brief obstacle course, which is designed okay, but it's short-lived; you lose the spinners once you make it to the kaleidoscope segment, which ends up having more trial and error due to its poor introduction of its mechanic: standing on floor tiles changes the color of the floor tile, and you have to stand in the gaps between an existing line of alt-colored floor tiles so they make a fully-connected line. Once you figure that out, every subsequent use of the mechanic is just a regurgitation with a different line; nothing else you have to figure out.

After the kaleidoscope segment, you gotta wander around the room to find wooden statues, then do some more trial and error to figure out which slots they go on. After this, you unlock the handcar, which is just you tapping the buttons (you don't even have to alternate button pushes like in Mario Party, nor do you have to worry about avoiding the lava spouts; the handcar segments are just glorified cutscenes). There's a part where one character is on a large toy dino and can move platforms so the character on the small dino can progress, and the hardest part (which still isn't that hard) is realizing that you're not stuck when approaching the turn before the elevated spikes; you just have to keep walking forward and a cutscene will happen that changes things so you can progress.

When you reach the boat, one character controls the paddle wheel on one side while the other character controls the paddle wheel on the other side. It's effectively the same control setup as Steambot Chronicles: hold both forward to move forward, hold one forward and one backwards to turn left/right, shoot at enemies with LT/left-mouse-button. The main difference, of course, is that Steambot Chronicles is a single-player game. Again, wasn't this game's whole theme that working together is better than going alone? Why are there ANY segments where it's obviously better to do it single-player, let alone so many? You don't even need to worry about firing both cannons at once except for large doors; enemies die just fine with you using only one cannon. There's even a boss at the end of this segment, but again, it's super easy with barely anything you need to watch out for.

After the Steamboat Chronicles segment, you reach a castle level where you get your next gimmick: one character can dash over pits and the other character can temporarily freeze lava spouts into platforms to progress (and teleport through cage walls). A lot of this segment is just fighting waves of enemies, but there is level design here (putting it well above other hack 'n' slash games I've played) with ranged enemies being placed in spots only one character can reach, as well as there being a couple different types of ranged attacks enemies can have. There's even a chase sequence near the end, which is quite tricky to do alone since you'll have to run past enemies to have enough time to break down the barricades past them, as well as use your characters' special meter attacks at the right time. The segment ends with a fight against some chess pieces; it's okay, but I felt it had too much HP, just like the level 3 boss.

Next is the clock tower level; its gimmick is one character can set a teleport spot and teleport back to it (the game calls it "cloning," which is misleading), and the other character can "rewind" objects (for example, fixing a crumbled statue). This level goes HARD on the switch hunts, even having a full-on riddle (albeit a simple & easy one) with the animals over the analog clocks. This is also the only level where there's no icon indicating an interactable object for the opposing character; you have to go there as said other character for the icon to show up on said other character's screen. It doesn't have a timing segment until you reach the second mini tower guarding the main tower at the end; the "clock" face is divided into three sections, and whichever section the minute-hand points towards is the one platform-type of the three that you can stand on (you fall through the other two). There are still some switches, like the two at the end that replace one color platform with a different color platform, but since the "clock" is always ticking, you have to time your jumps and button presses to get past. At the end, one character controls the minute-hand while the other character makes the final jumps; it's okay, but not quite as tricky as the previous timing (though now you don't have to wait for the hand to cycle back around). The bull boss is a bit unintuitive that you need to set a teleport spot down before you stand on the switch to lure the bull to hit the statue; once you realize that, it isn't too bad. After another unnecessarily long hall that's basically empty (and probably a bunch more switch hunts; it all kinda blurs together), you have to jump over clock hands that'll kill you while also keeping an eye on when they change direction; it's okay, but again, not really a co-op-specific action segment. There's also a little chase scene afterward, and for what may be the only time in the entire game, you can't just focus on getting one character to the end before starting with the other character since they both need to be at the end to avoid the explosion; what you have to do is move both forward, then when you reach the first jump, you can focus on getting one to the rail, then switch over while the other is rail-grinding.

Next is the snow level, which also has a bunch of switch hunts. The gimmick is magnets/polarity; one character has blue and the other has red. After a while, you'll reach the first timing segment: one character mans a gun that shoots polarity discs at a wall, but they slowly slide down, so the other character has to use the magnet to get up/across in time.

After another while, you reach the candy factory, and one of the three pipes you need to turn on is guarded by a giant anglerfish. To turn the pipe on, all you have to do is use your magnets to drag the wrench to the screws, then continue using your magnets to turn the wrench to turn the screws. To be frank, the stealth element adds nothing to the switch hunt; all that happens is the camera points to the fish, who charges at you, and then you dodge and continue with the switch hunt. If you get killed, you have to swim an entire ten seconds to get back to where you were. Even if you're okay with gimmicky games, you have to admit that this isn't how to do stealth segments; it should've at least been more like the Deku Palace from Majora's Mask, being a simple maze with multiple guards showing exactly where their view reaches, and maybe the maze could be different for both characters to encourage multiplayer. The game could even keep having to drag the wrench using polarity, making the player balance dragging the wrench with avoiding the guards. But no, they must've spent all their budget on that stupid, detrimental memory/card matching segment.

The snow level really goes all in with the switch hunts (it has very few timing segments). It doesn't even have a boss, instead ending with a windy mountain; you have to use your magnet to latch onto the magnetized signposts while the other character latches onto the first one until the wind dies down, then you gotta run to the next signpost with the appropriate character and repeat the process. It's more annoying than anything, having to keep both magnet buttons held down for so long, all in service of not-that-interesting level design.

After that, you reach the garden level. One character can shoot water, while the other character can use Vine Whip (it's super effective). While the previous couple levels chose switch hunts, this level goes all in with beat 'em up/hack 'n' slash gameplay; though not as good as the castle level, there's still some co-op required since water character can only attack ground enemies and vine character can only kill airborne enemies. There are also a couple enemies and a miniboss that you need to stun as vine character then attack as water character. That said, there's no level design to make fights more dynamic like in the castle level; you fight them once, you've fought them a hundred times. There are a few times where you might think the mobs are endless and that you have to do something else besides attack them, but no, they can just be a lot to deal with, and they always run out if you keep attacking. There's also one part where you have to use water character to shoot plants so they lift their leaves to create platforms for the other character, and it was here where I really started to notice that the game was just recycling the same gameplay in the form of shiny new gimmicks. The level boss swaps the vine gimmick for a ball-rolling gimmick. Its weak points are towers that spew poison; you have to rinse the poison out of existence with the water character, then dash into the towers with the ball character; do this enough and you'll be able to get the ball character to bring one of the boss's weak points in range so you can attack it with water character.

The final level is the music level. One character can sing to toggle platforms and switches, while the other has a cymbal that can be tossed like a boomerang. The beginning has a tricky part since you need the singing character to lift platforms, but your singing meter can run out, so you have to alternate until getting around halfway to 2/3rds, then booking it as the other character; if you make it, you can let the first character die and respawn, then take your time getting across. Not long into the level, you'll find a platform with four-way arrows on it and some mics connected to a +. The mics are labeled with letters, and the wires are color-coded; plus, each letter and wire color corresponds to a spot on the four-way arrow on the platform. Seems easy to figure out what to do, right? Hit the mic as the singing character and the other character can ride the platform…except…

…it's backwards. The mic is labeled A, and connected to the left side of the plus with a red wire. the left side of the platform is a red arrow with the letter A on it, but hitting the corresponding mic sends the platform to the right.

Later on, there's a part where one character moves platforms around in a circle, and the other character jumps across them. It's very easy considering what's come before, and it's basically just each character doing a little thing and then waiting on the other.

After a bit, you'll encounter snakes made out of cables and a mic. For the first few times, you sing with one character to reveal their weak point, then attack with the other character; very basic stuff. Then, suddenly, the game changes up the mechanics so singing just puts them to sleep and you have to run past before your meter runs out. At the end, the last snake's weak point is on backwards; at first, I thought I had to time my attack while in mid-bounce, but all I really had to do was wait for the bounce to finish sending me to the other side of the snake and then attack. Getting eaten by a cable snake punishes you with an extra-long death animation you gotta sit through before you can try again.

There's a segment where one character controls lights and the other character has to move forward while staying inside the lights to avoid damage. Again, it really feels like the co-op wasn't thought through when segments like this exist that seem clearly designed to be easier in single player. Next you get jetpacks, and there's a couple segments where you shot at flying enemies, and when you shoot the one with the key, you have to bring it to the locked cage at the bottom. Enemies can steal the key back from you, so I assume the other character is supposed to help guard the character who has the key. Either way, it's eventually possible to kill all the enemies in the room, at which point you can take your time bringing the key to the lock. Afterwards is a segment that alternates between rhythm game and a few microgames; you have to run to the appropriate spots to do the microgames (any character can go to any spot), and while I never did clear all four microgames in one go (best I got was three), I also didn't have to, because you're just trying to fill up a meter (it goes up with each success and down with each failure). The rhythm segment was almost the third hardest part of the game, but then I realized that both characters have the same sequence, so then it was just a matter of hitting Q with X, E with Y, and spacebar with B.

And then…that's it. That's the end of the game.

Overall, this one's hard to recommend. The action parts were pretty good for the most part, but there's also a lot of boring switch hunts. The game seems more like it was made to be played with someone unfamiliar with games, to introduce them to the concept. If you're looking for truly meaningful co-op, something that actually takes two…this isn't it.