Here's my review {Play this game it rules!}
This game is so awesome! There is so much that is amazing here, and playing this game made me happy. The final game will definetly be an instant purchase for me.Playing this game it is immediately obvious that the developer is a hardcore action game fan, and I think this game holds up with the other great action games I've played so far. I have only one complaint, and I'll leave it after my waves and waves of praise.
My favorite component is the soundtrack, which is just full of pure bangers. I love how the music transitions from exploration to combat, especially with the spike of more metal as a you get into a combat. I consistently listen to the ost for this game, and get boosted by it's energy. it is one of only two soundtracks I've purchased.
The base mechanics lead to an excellent combat system. The movement options are really nice. This has everything I enjoy about hollow knight combat, but with the addition of a couple exceptionally interesting moves and surprising amount of depth in variants for each verb to elevate this to a new level. I'll specifically call out two moves which are incredible and make this game standout a lot.
Dive attack: Having a diagonal downwards dive shakes things up a bunch. It takes a bit to get used too, but once you have a good feel for it {and there are some neat platforming sections that help you get used to it}, combat is injected with this incredible sense of motion. It serves as a great way to leave a pogoing in the air state, either to be incredibly aggressive or as a panicked escape. It also encourages more horizontal movement in general to complement an aerial strategy which makes combat more exciting.
Hook-dash: {a straight hook attack that dashes you through an enemy or obstacle on contact}. This move is a beautiful work of genius. It's shade dash's {from hollow knight} cooler sibling. There's quite a bit of skill to utilizing it because a few moments of wind up {to launch the hook}, so it's not an instant escape tool. Yet the nuances of this move make it loop back around to something that you can use slightly *before* you're in danger and need to move immediately. I love the momentum you get from using this, and again like the dive attack it encourages horizontal movement across the battle in a great way. Then on top of having this your character still has a normal dash that can also go through enemies, I like how this move takes more skill to use, and is a massive repositioning + evasive maneuver.
The best part is that the enemy design is fantastic and properly challenges and complements this move set. The above mentioned hook maneuver has certain enemies that are immune to it. Yet this is incredibly intuitive and always 100% obvious from visuals {long lads can not be hooked through, but any thin section of any enemy can always be hooked through}. Speaking of well-done visual design, there are helicopters in this game that just jaw droopingly genius in how their design naturally makes them immune to a certain type of attack {pogos}. Each enemy justifies their existence, and creates a certain type of pressure and challenge. Yet these enemies aren't used in isolation , but together in crazy and hectic battles where you have to manage the diversity and scale of problems from tons of enemies all at once. There's quite a few severe difficulty spikes, yet you feel awesome constantly and get huge rushes of satisfaction from managing to clear a chaotic arena or tough boss. The main gameplay here is so strong that I find myself sometimes just opening magenta horizon, doing a random stage, and quickly feeling awesome.
The visual style here is weird in a really exciting and awesome way. I specifically love the vibrant use of colors to create the strange setting. Too many games lack a nice use of color, and that along with some other personal taste has made generally uninterested in the type of setting this game has, but the art style of this game sells me on it. Instead of playing the game despite grotesque things that aren't really my vibe, I was excited to see what strange and twisted thing would be next. Some of the stages are sweet surprises that really standout too .
Now for my *one* complaint: the checkpoint system sucks and fills me with an indescribable rage. I hate constantly having to redo sections. It really deflates my enjoyment of the game to have to constantly go through battles again and again to get back to the actual part that I want to be playing after I die. The design of the system here is so ridiculous that I could often save time by just restarting the whole level and going for a more optimal checkpoint usage. Sometimes I'll get aggravated with the game and stop solely due to this, but I always return eventually excited to play. The boss battles are a highlight for me because you respawn right outside of the beginning of the fight. If I could play this game in a cheat mode where there were checkpoints before every fight I would be very happy.
Also to not end on negativity, I'll throw in some more lightning round praise
The ranged skills are cool, and there's tons of cool interactions and uses of them that I'm still discovering new stuff for after finishing act 1
The stage select is handy -> especially because you can select difficulty for playing that stage and also still have your characters unlocks
The hard post-game difficulty is interesting and well designed {so far it seems like too much for me but I am enjoying exploring it}
The bosses are chaotic and aggressive which makes them much more interesting than 50% of video game bosses. I can tell that the developer is a fellow GPZ {hollow knight boss} enjoyer.
Finally this game is incredibly impressive as a solo passion project. From studying game dev I'm intimately aware of so many pain points and have a big appreciation for the difficulty of creating a game. So by default I have a respect for any solo game, but this holds up to my actual favorites on top of that, so it is even more impressive. To be honest I idolize the developer a bit, and put them on the same pedestal of all the other monumental developers and games which inspire me to work to get to that level. [Also it should be noted that they are a cool person who I enjoy talking too, and supporting this game is incredibly emotionally satisfying]