Played up until I got the double jump.
The atmosphere of this game is phenomenal. The sound all of the robots make, their designs, and animations are really great. That being said, there are problems. Most notably the slow moment and how it negatively impacts the combat. In short, it is difficult to move or dodge out of the way when an enemy attacks you. I think the problem mostly lies with the dash which has multiple issues.
- The dash isn't mentioned in the tutorial (at least up to the part I got to, and even if it is mentioned after, such a core mechanic should be mentioned very early anyways)
- The button mapping for the dash, both on controller (in my case an xbox controller) AND keyboard is bad. In the case of the former the button mapping does not work at all as pressing the left stick down opens the map and left button opens the module menu. On keyboard and mouse it's the middle mouse button which is just a bad choice if you want players to consistently use the dash as the middle mouse button input is very annoying to use.
- You can only dash while already running. This makes dashing in cramped areas very difficult, and because you need to enter a running state before dashing this increases the likelihood of you getting hit before you can even dash.
Now the dash isn't necessarily the only problem with the combat, but it is one of the more noticeable flaws. A minor flaw is the fact that enemies have similar color palettes to the background (and each other) so they blend together. This makes it difficult to tell when enemies are telegraphing their attacks, again increasing the likelihood of being hit.
Also, this might have been a personal problem, but save stations not healing you is incredibly punishing. I'm okay with the save stations not recharging the Nano Modules, but I think interacting with a save station should heal you. Towards the latter end of my playthrough I got to a point where it would only take 1 hit to kill me, and the game became unfun because of it.
Beyond that, here are some assorted notes I took while playing:
- There is a bug where you can select to load a game even if you haven't ever started a new game. Causes an infinite loading screen.
- The D-Pad is fine but using the joystick on a controller (in my case an XBOX controller) causes weird inputs sometimes (like skipping over menu buttons)? Hard to explain.
- Not clear where you can ledge grab or not. Maybe mark it visually?
- Not sure what my remaining health is? UI bit confusing on that part, could just be me.
- Bind healing items/consumables to a button? (If you can, it's not clear)
There was a softlock, pictured below. The box blocks you when you pull it back to the right.
