Treasures of the Aegean

I feel really bad for this developer. From this and SuperEpic it is clear that there is at least one Person in there that has a vision for the games they make. The art is always nice to look at and each game has unique ideas and new mechanics and gimmicks. But the final product is always just a boring mess. Here even though the art looks stunning in screenshots once you move it falls apart. The player model is clearly 3d with textures streched over it and she moves very stiff and looks aweful. If you walk there are constant dust clouds appearing at your feet but they are cut of at clearly visible borders making them just out of place rectangles. Enemy soldiers shoot slow moving bullets at you with hitboxes that hit you even if you are no where near the bullet. There is a timeloop and every time it ends you lose your phone in the past so Atlantis gets more information each time and the map changes each time. Which is a really interesting premis. But it is implemented in a giant empty map that has basically no gameplay to it besides falling down to the deepest spot each time. All the puzzles to open gates are just there to waste your time (literally) since you only have 15 min each loop. The worst offender is that you can't actually safe mid loop. If you have to exit the game half way through the loop you have to find some friendly guards that shoot you to death or else you lose all progress since the start of the loop. Why? They could literally just record what you have done and act like the loop ended right then and there, so you start the next loop that way. Outer Wilds and basically every good timeloop game works that way. They also have an option to skip the current loop if you see that you don't have enough time to do what you want anyway.

Treasures of the Aegean is a decent metroidvania with an annoying time loop feature that drags it down. Luckily the rest of the game is good enough to make it worth putting up with, but it would be a much better game without the time loop. You play as Marie, who's an ex-mercenary turned treasure hunter joining her academic friend on an expedition to Crete, where a volcanic eruption unveils long-lost secrets of the Minoan civilization. But after 15 minutes, the volcano blows up in such a massive explosion, it destroys the entire world. Then the game resets and you get to explore the island from the beginning again. The automap fills out while you explore and shows you which areas you've already been to in previous runs, but this game-resetting time loop feature is still annoying. Metroidvanias are supposed to be about open exploration at the player's own pace, and the sense of urgency added by the timer doesn't fit to this style of gameplay. Especially since there are plenty of Tomb Raider style jumping and block-pulling puzzles around that take a while to figure out. On your explorations, you will discover ancient artifacts (which increase the timer: the more artifacts you find, the more time you have on later runs) and special quest items required to solve puzzles. You can acquire new abilities by freeing the spirits of ancient Minoan priestesses, which requires finding three gemstones and bringing them to the right place. But you have to find all three gemstones in the same run, as your quest items will vanish from the inventory after the reset. As you slowly figure out what you need to do, the final challenge is to solve three major puzzles in the same run (which lasts, at most, 20 minutes!) to find the ending. I greatly enjoyed the puzzles themselves, and the environments were quite varied. There are plenty of different areas to explore: shipwrecks of an Ottoman fleet, Minoan tombs, palaces, residential districts, a whale graveyard filled with giant bones. The art is beautiful and a joy to behold. The core platforming gameplay works decently enough; I've played games with smoother controls, but Treasures of the Aegean plays well enough that the controls were never a problem. Overall, it was an enjoyable game with beautiful art, an interesting story, and solid core gameplay of platforming and puzzle solving. I just would have liked it even more if it weren't for that stupid time loop system, which took me a long time to get used to, and even when I got used to it, it was merely bearable, not good.

This is the perfect example of why simplicity can give you better game than over-complicated system. its a 2d platformer with a pretty big map, and you just explore it, finding piece of story here and there, collectible, and puzzle that are fairly easy. I wish this game was bigger or that there was more similar game cause its just so fun to move around and find stuff

I don't know if it is just because I am using a controller instead of the keyboard but these controls infuriate me and make gameplay more tedious than fun

This game is dope. 2D Mirror's Edge with Uncharted/Indiana Jones and really great puzzles all wrapped up in a time loop. Please play it. It's been a while since I enjoyed a game so much!

The game is fascinating, however the crashes are really annoying. Be sure to test on your playing platform first. ------------------------------- After completing the game: Though the game still crashed randomly, luckily one loop will only last for about 15 minutes and it did not crash very often. So the situation was indeed annoying but not critical. If you love 2D platform game, or long for a treasure hunting on an ancient island, this game is certainly for you. But based on the length and the volume of the game's core contents, I recommend to buy this on sale. Besides, although you might find some of the collectibles are hard to find. You could always ask the developers for help and they are really warm-hearted guys.

La mejor forma de describirlo que se me ocurre es: "princeofpersia-vania indianajonesco". Tiene de todo lo que me gusta y un poco más también, es tremendo plataformero con puzzles y todavía me queda mucho por descubrir. Edit: es un juegazo, lo acabo de completar al 100% con la profecía y todos los tesoros. Hay un par de cuestiones que podrían mejorar pero en líneas generales es super disfrutable y recontra satisfactorio terminarlo, me lo guardo para una review en Youtube!

Found this game during Steam Next Fest October 2021 and loved the demo. Just under three years later ( 😱) I finally got around to playing it. The game is an [B]eccentric take on the metroidvania/rogue-lite genre[/B], adding a [B]time-loop mechanic[/B] to the usual platforming, collecting and map-exploration - the player only gets between 15 and 25 minutes per loop to explore (finding collectibles extends the loop-time), but retains information and the map from the previous runs. The [B]starting location on the map is randomized for each loop[/B] (within the parts of the map that have already been explored / uncovered). For the first ten loops, there are also special stages, which are not connected to the main game map and serve to illustrate a part of the story, which is largely told in flashback sequences. The [B]map is very large and detailed[/B], with 110 unique collectibles to find and dozens of puzzles to solve, some of which require finding and carrying items from one part of the map to another. To make this fun, the game implements a [B]wonderfully smooth and flowing movement system[/B] that lets the player-character run, climb and jump their way through the map really fast with really easy controls (on game controllers, haven't tried with mouse/kb). There are a enemies on the map, but they are few and far between and really only serve to slow the player down on occasion - [B]the player character cannot actually die[/B] either and brushes off both getting shot (thanks to a bullet-proof vest) or falling too large a distance (because ... she's just that much of a badass?) with ease. But recovering does cost a whole minute on the loop timer and that becomes significant as the game progresses and some of the puzzles require quite a bit of time and travel to solve - and it needs to be done before the loop strikes and resets the puzzle state. The game's [B]art-style deserves a special mention for successfully adapting the "Ligne Claire" style of Franco-Belgian 20th century comic albums[/B] into a video game. Due to its unique design choices, [B]this game might not be for everyone[/B]. Among the things that will irritate anybody looking for either a traditional metroidvania or a linear platformer: * [B]Forced non-linear exploration[/B] due to the "time-loop", which really is a time-limit plus a randomized starting location * A [B]huge[/B] map without any metroidvania-style skill-gates. Exploring the entire place first and then [B]remembering where to go to do what is an explicit part of the challenge[/B] in this game. * A "semi-automatic" mapping system, which does reveal the game's world as the player explores it and saves the state across loops, [B]but does not automatically mark collectibles, items and locations[/B]. Instead, the mapping screen provides a plethora of symbols that the player can use to make their own marks on the map, which are also preserved through loops. * Complete focus on exploration, navigation and puzzle-solving: [B]The player character is unarmed and can neither shoot nor fight[/B]. However, [B]I had an absolute blast[/B] with this game, 100%-ed it immediately on the first playthrough (in roughly 12 hours of playtime) and it's now the latest entry in my "All Time Favorites" category of my Steam library.

Treasures of the Aegean is an exploration game with a good emphasis on movement and platforming, featuring great artworks, environments, music and an interesting story. You get you full move set from the get go and are free to roam around the whole island, there are actually a few powers you can acquire during your playthrough but they're more small quality of life things, nothing is ability gated. The island is pretty huge so it feels like you're aimlessly wandering around picking up collectibles at first, but with the map completing itself after each loop, as long as you are diligent with map annotations, you'll quickly get a grasp of where you are going, places you still need to visit, and what to do. I liked that each loop made you start in a random point of the island, encouraging you to explore new places. The movement is fluid and pleasurable, your character is quick and perfectly able to parkour through its environment. I liked the features that can be exploited to conserve momentum like sliding or automatically climbing one block tall obstacles. Only thing that was a little off for me was the wall climbing that felt like it wasn't triggering consistently at times but I'm nitpicking here. I had a very good time overall with Treasures of the Aegean and would heartily recommend it !

An open-ended Metroidvania-esque tomb raiding platformer with a time loop twist, and a great way to spend six or seven hours. It looks good, plays well, tickles the exploration and puzzle-solving part of your brain without taxing it too much, and is sensible enough not to outstay its welcome. Extremely solid and enjoyable game.

Just finished the game, and was deffo a good time! This island is a very big place to explore, and there are lots of neat little puzzles and secrets to find throughout the place. In fact, I even completed the [Final Objective] with only like a minute to spare before time looped again. ^w^ I haven't 100% completed the game - that isn't really of interest to me personally - but I am very much satisfied with just ending the game as is. Deffo check it out if you like the puzzle platformer genre, and if you don't mind games with (albiet generous and increaseable) time limits for you to do things. ^w^

Decent exploration puzzle platformer. No real impediments to your exploration beyond the time you have between each run, so how you get around the map and focus on is up to you. There's a few personal gripes with the mechanics but otherwise a enjoyable way to while away a few hours.

very fun platforming combined with an interesting mythology about the collapse of an ancient civilisation. its main gimmick of a time loop might throw people with terrible memory (like myself) off, but marking stuff on the map helps a great deal with that. also, the music in the western island is stellar. highly recommend this one.

So up front I will say that this game wasn't for me, but I do think there's something worth trying here. Let's also put up front that this is a time loop game. I didn't actually realize this at first - despite it being in the description, so how's that for an indictment of my reading skills - but in case you are like me and didn't realize, keep that in mind. I dislike time loop games, and that's why I've put this one down, but if you do like that sort of thing, the core game play is fast and fun. It's one of those games where simply moving around feels great. It seems like the sort of game for speed runners, with precise and fluid movement abilities enabling a rapid exploration of ancient parkour ruins, collecting treasures before time runs out. It has a charming comic book aesthetic too, and from what little I saw of them, the characters are interesting. I like that they're unabashed treasure hunters rather than exploring for some altruistic of righteous reason; makes them more interesting to watch. If an action platforming in a time loop sounds fun to you, give it a whirl!

Amazing game. The controls are really smooth and the parkour feel so good. Also the story and the mitology are really interesting. This game is a must, a hidden gem that we all should play. Also looks quite challenging to complete 100%

I haven't played that much yet, but what a lovely game! Simple but satisfying platforming (feels super fluid), super interesting premise and setting, a lovely athmosphere - it just feels good to play and it's a blast to explore and admire the art, while putting the pieces together and unveiling some of the misteries of this "lost civilization".

fun exploration game mysterious and challenging, puzzles take a while to figure out! the only downside is the game is kinda misleading from the images since it shows soldiers so you think theres combat but thats just a hazard. so thats the only con for action lovers the game itself is a nice narrative

Enjoying this one a lot, it's quite different from other Metroidvanias I've played before. Love how I have, virtually access to everything from the start and it's up to me to develop a movement strategy to solve all the riddles. The world is huge, it looks gorgeous and I'm digging the historical background, characters, and mid-loop flashbacks. Really something original!

Aegean is a wonderful game for those who want an adventure to dig into. The gameplay is really fun and will keep you hooked while you look for every little secret. The art is also nice, with an iconic character design and style. But probably my personal favourite is the music, which is just great. Overall is a very recommended indie game.

What a gem of a game! I loved running and jumping through Thera, finding every hidden treasure. Every piece of hidden lore found in different loops understanding that great lore. And the game is SO beautiful. Recommended 100%

Treasures of the Aegean is a unique and fun metroidvania puzzle-platformer. It combines these genres in a really great way where each aspect is crucial to the overall gameplay which keeps it feeling fresh each run. The general gameplay involves exploring the world while on a timer, collecting items as you do so to add more time to your next run, discovering various prophecies scattered throughout the map, and solving puzzles along the way. I found the look and music of the game to be immersive and adds to the overall vibe of the game. The only warning I would give is that you kind of get plunked down in the middle of nowhere with little to guide you. While this may be off-putting to some ("Ok, so...what do I do/what's the point?") I think the game is intuitive in how it guides the player towards successfully completing the game. If you are lost/unsure, I suggest just exploring some more, as that generally led me towards discovering (or rediscovering if I didn't have what I needed the first time I checked something out) more things that helped me in the end. There were a solid 3-4 loops where I felt like I wasn't making any progress, but in fact I was, I just didn't know it yet. Also, do yourself a favor and mark your map in a consistent way from the start. The game is pretty clear in showing which items/puzzles are related to others, so take note of that as you make your way through it. I found this game to be a lot of fun and really satisfying in its core gameplay, particularly in terms of being able to slowly but consistently figure things out to eventually solve everything. The movement was at times a little janky, but there was nothing game-breaking. At the same time, there were some things that I really appreciated - the map is huge, which can feel overwhelming when you're first starting, but they made your character fast, which was a lot of fun and makes you feel agentic when time is of the essence. Overall, I highly recommend this game for those looking for something a little different in the exploration/metroidvania/puzzle-platformer genres, or for those who tend to enjoy these types of games more generally.

What a phenomenal game! A nice mix between a fun platformer and a mystery that makes you think for yourself. I love how this game is a mystery game without crazy obscure puzzles. Just by platforming and running around, you start to unravel the mysteries of the island. Is something like Outer Wilds or Forgotten City, but focused on platforming instead of puzzles. The gameplay is fantastic, the level design makes good use of the parkour system. Also, the visuals are vibrant and stylish, and the music is amazing. For those who love a good treasaure hunting adventure, momentum platformer or a mystery game, it is a must have. The only complaint I have, is that the marker system could be reworked. Regardless, it is now one of my favorite indie games of all time.

Have you ever heard of Majora's Mask? This is like that but with challenging platforming, treasure searching and super tight controls. If you like Indiana Jones and/or Tomb Raider, this is a must buy for you!

Terrific exploration, action, visuals and music. It would be my GOTY if not for some irritations, the main one I'll detail for your benefit. The game is not a puzzle-platformer, rather a precision platformer on the clock with imprecise controls. At the core is a time loop, a feature du jour with no added value for the player, only drawbacks such as interrupting your exploration, ruining your current progress, forcing you to take breaks, revisit the same places and redo the same parkours again and again and again. And maybe again. A feature invented by Zeus to punish Sisyphus, it appeals to robots, but tends to keep explorers at bay. Well, don't keep yourself at bay. It's a minor flaw here because the other mechanics are great, the map awesome and the parkour addictive. Besides, the narrative itself makes a compelling use of this time loop. Now for my main gripe. The lack of clarity of the rules wasted my first 6 hours of play, and made the rest needlessly long and difficult. Discovering how vast the island is, in the fog of war, I started visiting and marking the map systematically. Yes, there is a map, and a large array of markers for you to use. Because you keep forever the treasures you find, regardless of the time loop, I also proceeded to remove the markers for seized objects. Until hours later, when I saw something that was already in my inventory. Or so I thought it was. Some objects behave differently. Here is how it actually works: Most treasures appear in the frame around your prophecy chart. Those, you own for good. Yet the most important artifacts are drawn inside the chart. Those activate doors and machines, and they don't stay with you. They are kept in the time loop. You need to reach them each time you want to use them. Don't repeat my mistake. Keep your markers for those, with links to whatever they activate. Had the game been less fun, I would have given up. Instead, I crisscrossed a thousand times, with no fog of war to help any more. 18 hours later, I rediscovered the last one. The parkour isn't easy. It's full of timers, inside the general timer. The controls are not exactly to my liking (in particular, I'd rather act to hold rather than to release grips,) but one gets used to them. Combos are not described in game; they should be. The animations are dope, on the other hand. The avatar is fast, restless, and very agile. She can swing on ropes, climb chimneys by jumping like Peter Parker on steroids, use walls to break her falls, and more. I might be repeating myself but she's great fun to handle. The only thing she can't do is climb a block she touches. She needs some space to achieve it. Clearly a glitch that calls for a fix in a patch. The art in Ligne Claire style is stunning. The colours in particular deserve a rare praise. It nearly was my choice for best looking game of the year. The music did get my nomination though. It's not only great and fitting, I found that it actually enriches the action itself, it energises the running and jumping. Astounding score. And to change the tune, simply change your location. I hate timers with a passion, but this game is a must-have.

This was a really good game. It's not a metroidvania though, it's just a time-loop puzzle-platformer, there are no metroidvania elements here except maybe the map, but a map does not make it a metroidvania. It actually has more in common with a roguelike than a metroidvania with its focus on runs and resetting everything except a few major puzzles that remain solved. What it is however is a fantastic game with some fun platforming, some good puzzles and an ok story. From a gameplay perspective I had a great time with this for most of my time with it. In the beginning you make steady progression and are treated to some character-backstory events in-between runs. This eventually stops and you just keep doing the runs until you've completed the game. This can get tedious if you are stuck on an element and keep having to redo puzzles and it does suffer from "big map syndrome" at the later stages when in addition to information you also need a few items to progress and those can be tricky to find. The map additionally has a few problems, 1) The map markers are SO tiny I barely could see them, often not even barely as they also have a colour that blends into the background (I hope this gets fixed in an update), 2) there's no distinction if you've picked up a treasure (remains picked-up across runs) or a key item that you need to advance a puzzle and therefore useless as they are should be given a map marker. Other than that, and getting stuck a few times I had a really good time with this. I finished it with probably pretty close to 100% completion, I had almost all treasures (except 4 I think) and probably almost all prophesies as well. Looking forward to their next game. I might even replay this at some time.

Awesome game, I enjoyed it a lot! Be sure to make smart use of the game's marker system. *edit: Also, I've noticed this game still hasn't gotten more traction. I'd just like to say, this is one of very few games that, when I see it while scrolling through my Steam library, still makes me feel a little happier inside just remembering how neat it was, and I would very much like more people to play it.

It's a cautiously positive recommendation, and with warnings about what to expect. It's a game about exploring during a time limit each time, and in that time while you solve mini platform puzles to get collectibles and you familiarize with the world, you have to resolve some macro puzles that require you to move around the island within that time limit. Moving around the island with parkour is fun, the world is vast and huge, and the artistic world for the world design is AMAZING and tremendous work. However, some of the problems that you should take into account before playing are: -The game expects you to go to the map and mark EVERYTHING important you see, whether it's a mechanism or inscription or object (that isn't just a collectible that you can't use [yellow] unlike the ones you need to use for something [orange]) or collectibles that you can't reach. That's kinda tedious when you just want to explore the island, but if you don't do it then when you have the whole island explored you won't know where everything that you need to beat the game is and you hit against so many brick walls. Spending tons of time loops trying to get some parts to find nothing is really tedious and frustrating. -Some puzzles are really hard and not obvious at all, as well as the localization of certain objects that you have to put in other places (i.e. a certain orb that you have to put in a machine at the upmost northwest part of the game). -Some platform challenges sections are really unfair and frustrating which requires pixel-perfect precision to beat. There is one for a collectible that has a trick that is not obvious but is consistent to get once you know it so I can accept it, but one of the objects needed (something of Bansabira, I don't remember which one, you have to press a switch to raise a wall to get it in a very short amount of time) requires so much pixel-perfect precision to get without alternative solution that everytime I had to get it I had to try like 50 times and I'm not exaggerating, and I haven't found anything that makes solving that challenge reasonable. So overall it's a fun game but that both to get to the ending and get completionist is going to be kind of frustrating, which makes it hard to recommend. But I'll still do it because of its strengths, the work required, and because I'm spanish and this is a spanish-produced game and I want to support them. Just know what you are getting into and if you feel it's up to you. P.S.: On a personal note if you like exploring each corner of the map to get a nice map you will also get frustrated because there are many spots that you can't reach and they look like ugly holes in the map, but that's just me =)

Kalimera!!! Good art? CHECK Responsive controls? CHECK CHECK CHECK This one was a very kind surprise! Went in expecting nothing and ended up loving it. If I say more I feel I would be spoiling the game though. Better find out by yourself. The only negative thing I found is that sometimes you can't tell what is background and what is gameplay area. But I also hope this was the only negative stuff I found in most games. Check it out. You won't regret :) καλημέρα

A true indie gem! This game is a parkour/platformer with plenty of exploration to do. The puzzles are not too hard but need you to be precise and quick most of the time. Finding all treasures and solving all puzzles are very satisfying. Definitely recommend!

Mad boring, sloppy inputs, no way to manually save progress in a single player game.

one of the best parkour platformers there is. its not the greatest, but the way it merges exploration with narrative is very well done. 9/10 i would recommend

Exploration means treasure, treasure means more time, more time means more exploration... This is quite an enjoyable game with fluent free-running and quite some things to discover. I never encountered any serious bugs (although I found some dinosaur bones) and apart from some slightly repetitive elements towards the end experiencing the generally same time over and over again feels fresh every time when you unveil more and more of the map, find more clues about the prophecy intertwined with the events at hand and unlock the mechanism hidden on the treasure island you ultimately want to get away from (getting away rich, of course). There are some quality of life issues, e.g. you have to tap through the story sequence at loop start to save and exit. And as far as I understood, you cannot pause your progress but have to end the current loop, so some time management ahead makes it a bit more stressful than necessary. The puzzles seem fair, but I recommend to take notes as soon as you find something that seems important. Which brings me to my biggest complaint. Taking notes breaks the flow of an otherwise smooth run over the island. It is okay, but at some points I wished it was a run & collect game. Anyway, nothing that kept me from 100% completion and I definitely recommend this game!

Mirror's Edge mixed with Tomb Raider with a sprinkling of roguelite on top via time loops. Character is a blast to control as her default speed is booking it. Environments are varied and beautiful with splashes of incredible music throughout. Favorite thing is discovering some complicated environmental puzzle, then discovering it is interlocked with others, then solving the whole thing to progress both the game but my also my own progress through the island. Great stuff.

[u]TL;DR:[/u] Genuinely fantastic and unique experience despite some nitpicks. Get this if you've ever: [list] [*]played a Tomb Raider game and wished it focused on the puzzles and navigation instead of combat [*]wished more games would have Metroid Dread's fast and fluid side-scrolling movement [*]enjoyed making marks on game maps to note points of interest for yourself [*]enjoyed planning "optimal routes" through a game [*]tried out La-Mulana and loved the concept, but wished the puzzles were A LOT less obscure [/list] --- [u]Full Review:[/u] Treasures of the Aegean is an open-ended, combat-free, exploration-focused, fast-paced sidescrolling puzzler with a time loop mechanic and an aesthetic/theme reminiscent of stories like Tintin or Tomb Raider. It's unique, wonderful, and slightly flawed. Let me start by saying that my initial impression of the game wasn't quite as favorable as it ended up being the more I played. This was honestly in large part due to the English version of the game being riddled with typos and misspellings or grammatical errors ("downed" instead of "drowned", "16h Century" instead of "16th Century", just to name two) and, to get even more nitpicky, odd styling choices (not putting periods at the end of sentences if it's the last sentence in a speech bubble; using antiquated words like "majestuous"). It made the game seem a lot more amateurish than it actually is. (I ended up switching to the German version, which didn't have any of these issues, and it significantly improved my experience. Devs, if you're reading this, hire an editor to go over the entire English text in the game, and that's the single best thing you can do to improve the game right now. Or, heck, hit me up and I can at least take screenshots of all the errors in the treasure descriptions.) Additionally, the game art is inconsistent. It's actually really great for the majority of the time, especially where it matters! The in-game backgrounds are absolutely gorgeous, and a lot of the cutscene drawings are beautifully illustrated as well. But then there's some occasional cutscene panels where it feels like the artist rushed the piece. Some drawings look more sketchy than all the others, some have kinda wonky anatomy. It's not a big deal at all, but combined with the other issues I had, it really did affect my initial impression of the game. As far as the actual gameplay was concerned, there also were a few things that bothered me at first: 1) You collect treasure. These are unique, wonderfully illustrated historical pieces that appear to be closely based on real historical artefacts. Naturally, I wanted to read their descriptions! However, every time you collect a piece, you have to open a menu, select the correct tab, press a button to zoom in on an overview, and then slowly navigate towards the piece you just collected to read its description. A button prompt that appears after picking up a piece that would instantly take you towards this description would honestly go a long way towards making it more fun to collect all these artefacts! 2) At the start of the game I also didn't really understand the decision behind adding the time limit / time loop. It felt like it didn't really add much to the game and I wondered if it maybe was just there to artificially lengthen the game. But the more I got into the game's puzzles, I started to realize that the time limit forced you to really familiarize yourself with your objectives, and the map. It created a nice sense of tension in a game that is almost entirely free of threats. 3) Speaking of threats - very, very occasionally you come across enemies that shoot the world's slowest bullets at you. If you get hit, you lose a minute on your timer (the same happens when you fall from too great of a height). I wondered what the point of these encounters was. They really didn't add much. But then I had a moment where I realized that it's actually really awesome to have an adventure-themed game where there's enemy soliders trying to reach the same kind of treasure that you're hunting and it's... a reasonably sized amount of people, not a literally army that's just there to be gun-fodder (looking at you, modern Tomb Raider and Uncharted)! Besides, I appreciate the overall chilled out vibe that the gameplay has. Having more intense enemies would have probably been annoying. I just spent quite a lot of time critiquing the game. But don't mistake that for me saying it's bad! If this was a more mediocre game, I wouldn't have bothered to write a review. I wouldn't maybe have even bothered to finish the game. But Treasures of the Aegean gets way more right than it does wrong. All of my critiques are nitpicks or things that can be very easily fixed by the devs. The core of the game is great - fantastic, even! I loved the feeling of speedily running across the map in a way that feels reminiscent of Metroid Dread's fluid movement. I loved the feeling of piecing together the mystery and the solution to all the puzzles. I loved the gorgeous, hand-drawn level art that never felt like it repeated anything, like it was genuinely one big drawing you could explore. I loved the ability to make marks on the huge map, and to try and develop a code for myself of what each mark meant. I loved the beautiful music that has a few surprise vocal sections that are absolutely wonderful to listen to. I loved how the character's backstories slowly unfolded and how they grew on me. Treasures of the Aegean is a breath of fresh air in the Tomb Raider-esque adventure genre. It's a breath of fresh air in Metroidvanias and platformers. It's innovative and enjoyable, and maybe a bit flawed, but also genuinely wonderful. If there's ever a sequel I'd buy it on Day One. Until then, I highly encourage you to pick this up. Oh, and by the way, all the puzzle solutions are procedurally generated in each run of the game! So if you're big about replayability and speedrunning, I'd argue this is a good fit for you. Finally, shoutout to [url=https://www.youtube.com/yourfriendjacob]YourFriendJacob[/url] for talking about this game and making me find it. Literally haven't seen it mentioned by any of the other gaming sites or journalists I follow, which is a shame!

Calling this a metroidvania is a bit misleading. It definitely borrows ideas from those kinds of games. But it's more of a fusion of Metroid, Mirror's Edge, and Deathloop. There's no real combat in it, and you don't get a lot of upgrades. It's more of an adventure game told through the lens of an open-world puzzle platformer. More than anything I just wanted to set your expectations. That out of the way; In my opinion, this is a great game. The concept is very unique. Unraveling the story and working out how to complete the puzzles from repeated runs is very satisfying. The art direction is great, evoking a fun pulp-comics aesthetic. Music is fun, with pieces that dynamically transition when you move into a new area. I wont say more than that. It's worth seeing for yourself.

Neat little game with a neat little concept. You could pitch it as "2D outer wilds" I guess but it feels more akin in "time loop knytt underground" in that you have a very large, open map with tons of stuff to collect and a few specific end goals in mind, with light interludes spicing up the first half or so of the game. The plot itself is nothing to write home about, the lore's solidly compelling but a lot of it serves as puzzle solutions more than anything. I do wish the game more clearly laid out that orange aura items are key items that reset, unlike yellow aura relics, but it's something you can eventually learn yourself and in -most- cases the locations of orange items can be sussed out even if you don't remember where you first found them. I will say the lack of a fast travel system can be a bit tedious but considering the time limit I kind of get why? And there were a handful of bugs I encountered in my playthrough, but nothing that broke the game or anything, mostly just amusing stuff. I dunno, I feel like the game is pretty solidly good but the concept needed a bit more polish and maybe a bit more depth to really turn into something special, but for what is here it's still really damn fun just to parkour about and explore even without all the added frills. Neat little game.

Fusión elegante de metroidvania y parkour, sin combate ni ganancia de habilidades. A destacar el buen control del personaje, la música y el tamaño del mapa. No es frustrante ni difícil, exceptuando algún tesoro que requiere una coordinación casi perfecta (pero si vas a completar el juego al 100% ya sabes). La duración es correcta, pero se puede acabar con menos tiempo del que he invertido.

Great game. I finished it in one sitting. For platformers lovers, it is great to see a game with metroidvania aspects, but focusing only on platforming and a little bit of puzzling, with no combat. Controls and parkour-style movement also feel great.

Very enjoyable game. Fast moving platform adventure - perfect for a Saturday afternoon! Nice comic-book visuals, evocative soundtrack, interesting gameplay challenges, flowing movement controls. What I love is that the game doesn't hold your hand. No AAA-style objective markers here. The game reveals itself to you over time through exploring the map and uncovering the plot, puzzles and goals. It doesn't get too obscure or head-scratching.

Take a 2D action-platformer, have a parkour emphasis to the movement, add a big map to explore, all done with a comic-book aesthetic, and you've got Treasures of the Aegean. I wouldn't call it a Metroidvania since there are no movement upgrades - but your base movement is very fluid. Getting around the map is fun, which is good, because simple traversal is 95%+ of the game. You can't fight, and there are only a few enemies (with the slowest bullets in history) that just act as a minor obstacle here and there. The challenge is in getting around, grabbing what you need to, figuring out where to go and how to get there, and gradually piecing together the story and the answers to puzzles. It has some minor issues but no deal-breakers, and the most annoying thing is the typos scattered around the text. You'll always know what they meant, so it's not a huge deal. The game is fun, the gameplay loop is fun, and it's well-designed. It's one huge map, with no (visible) loading screens or other divisions between its areas - yet you can tell when you're in a different area because it FEELS different. No need to announce the name of the zone when the change in palette and shift in the background music will do it for you. Super fun, very recommended on like a 50% sale or better since it's not all that long, but very worth playing.

2D Comic Book Adventure of Mirror's Edge + Tomb Raider. I can recommend it!

Still playing it but feels really nice <3

A gret time loop adventure!

This game is awesome!

super fun game!