January Assassination #1

Metroidvania is probably my favorite genre, like ever, and I decided to kick off my backlog this year with all the Metroidvanias I've been sitting on while I wait for my January PAGYWOSG submissions to be approved.

Well, since Ghost 1.0 was on the list, and Mini Ghost exists, I figured this could be a good way to kill a day or two before being able to play my PAGYWOSG games.

While Mini Ghost was … fine … for most of its runtime, it has some poor design choices that are just too frustrating to cope with. In trying to emulate old games (in this case, from the MSX-era), the designer forgot he could keep the aesthetic but improve the gameplay. So yeah …. good luck spending half of your playtime exploring the world, and the other half running through the same screens again because you died in a boss and the only way of reaching it again is traversing the same old path you've been on since the beginning of the game. You don't want to provide good movement or defensive options? Fine, just don't flood my screen with unavoidable bullets, or enemies that stun-lock you in corners/in the air, above lava and with no mid-air control. Don't want to provide fast-track to a boss? Fine, just don't make a tortuous path that is three times as long as it needs to be and force me to navigate it.

It was a thumbs-up for 80% of my playtime, but the other 20% are so bad, so poor that I can't find myeslf recommending this game. Let's see if Ghost 1.0 delivers, although at this point I might just take it off my backlog and leave it in the pile of shame for some day.