Absolutely wow! This game was one of the most ambitious and expansive I've seen this jam! Well-paced, engaging, and... surprisingly philosophical!? This game really had it all!

Firstly, the  art and graphics are absolutely stunning! This game is actually beautiful:  probably too beautiful for this jam 😅 Everything was super cohesive, and there was a nice cast of side characters. The audio and music worked well, but the main loop in each of the worlds got a bit samey after a while (even though it was really nice!) The boss battle music was energetic and made me amped up! 

The writing really stands out:  especially in terms of how it uses the modifier. Many many suggestions are used in a meaningful way, and several are central to the plot. It's been lovely  seeing how every game has implemented the modifier, and this has really been one of the most impressive. I also loved  the references to Sapoconcho! It's always awesome to see references to past SBIGJams for all of us regulars!

There are a few nitpicks, but they're all fairly small. The names of characters don't seem to show for me in dialogue in fullscreen mode. There's a couple of things that could be really added to make the game more reactive, such as health bars for bosses, and some kind of audiovisual feedback for taking damage would go a long way.

Overall I was heavily impressed. I saved this game for last, and I'm really glad I did. Thank you so much for submitting!

Well that was a top down shooter with a story of epic proportions! I'm impressed you managed to complete so much in the jam, but I'll be honest the game really started to drag by the time I reached the second level. I genuinely think the game should've been one third of its size, or it should have added some different attacks for the player to shake things up. Preferably the ability to automatically fire because my index finger started to get sore about halfway through. The size of the levels combined with how many levels, combined with the long intro and outro amde this one of the longest entries in the jam and I'm not sure it fully justifies its length.

Outside of the length of the game I think the game is good, but I'm not sure its so bad its good. The story and dialogue could perhaps fall under that, but the gameplay, graphics and sound effects all seem like just "good" rather than "so bad its good". There was clearly a lot of polish and effort on this game, and perhaps too much polish. Though considering the length of the game I think its much better that its more good than bad.

The modifiers I think got implemented in some pretty interesting ways as well so bravo on that!

Overall, good game that overstays its welcome, and is more good than SBIG.

But still, impressive! Good work!

Really impressive, so much content in such a short jam! Fun gameplay and exploration. 

I thought it was great, it was fun and simple. Controls felt tight and the addition of the dodge was a good idea. My only issues are that some dialogue can take ages and my finger started to hurt after level 1. Overall, a great game, that somehow stays true to the theme lol.

Very good entry. Great job including so many modifiers. The dialogue was great. My only complaint is that for a jam game, it was a bit long. Overall though, it doesn't have much bad about it. It's just a really solid game.

I really love the premise of this game. It incorporates a lot of themes brilliantly, and the story blends serious and silly quite well. I do wish the opening text didn't take so long to go through, but that's a relatively minor issue.

But...

It feels about three times longer than it needs to be, starts to really drag around the halfway point, and what might have been minor, forgivable flaws really start to become a problem. The three sections of the game vary in design and graphics, but basically play the same. The long, mazelike dungeons got repetitive. The fact that things shot at you from offscreen and you could spam fire back went from funny to tedious. Running into objects that look like they can be walked by and having way too big a hitbox for anything resembling a bullet hell turned frustrating. The fact that you don't auto heal after a boss fight, along with the difficulty ramp in the bosses, became grating.

None of these things are deal breakers, but they're all the kind of minor annoyances that are plenty tolerable on a short and sweet game but become infuriating as time goes on.

I did finish it, the storyline was engaging enough and there was a bit of sunk costs on my part, but by the end I just wanted it to be over. I did not enjoy having to slog through a village full of enemies, and the reveal at the end was soured by how tired I was by that point.

Throughout the whole thing I kept pondering whether this game felt So Bad It's Good or not. And I really don't think it does. The gameplay is conventional and although it has flaws in the details, is by and large competently executed. The graphics and sound are simple, but nice. The storyline is silly and quirky and weird, but doesn't really hit the notes of janky goodbadness that I was expecting.

I think what's most telling, though, is that I'm very much approaching this review as if it were an earnest attempt at a quality game. 

Weirdly, it does a great job with the modifiers, possibly the best of any of the games I've played so far, while completely missing the boat on the core theme of the jam in my mind.

Whoa, this is a much more polished game than I would have expected in this jam. I think the polish might work a little against it since in some areas, it’s just too good for being SBIG (graphics, for example, are honestly just genuinely cute), but I absolutely love the unusually deep lore (it isn’t often an opening text is that long and I read it entirely without skipping) and how it implements the various modifiers.

I played one of the main levels and stopped at the boss. I think gameplay does get a little stale after a while and maybe shorter levels or more variation would have helped a little here, especially since the writing is just so enjoyable.

Still, all in all, a really well-made entry. Great job!

Im going to give my opinion and I hope you take it very well, I also should mention that I don't think that my game is any better, if anything I think you will win but on my opinion its a VERY well made, emty 2D top-down shooter. It feels like it was made just to win the jam, you know. I think you should get out of that comfort zone and make something that no other 2D top-down shooter ever has and than you will make some amazing games.  Great pixel art and sound design though.