3.0 hours played
Written 8 days ago
I wanted to enjoy this game. I really did.
I'm 59% complete with the map.
You run into little time-wasting things. You always have to watch the same boulder become a stairway when you enter the same room, 100x after you unlocked it and saw it happen the first time. If you accidentally step on a massive elevator ride that blends in with the floor, it begins to descend, since there's no switch to operate it. There's also a switch that needs to be hit as the elevator descends to open a backtrack-able area, but if you miss it on the 20 second elevator, you better ride it back up again and hit it. Did you not want to ride the elevator in the first place? Well, too bad, your foot grazed it so now you have to ride it.
A small bat hovers in like the fish in water levels that can tap you lightly and you will suddenly be bounced into a spike pit, and for the 20th time will experience the following: hear a scream, see red flash like an Adobe flash game simulating death, and spot YOU DIED in Dark Souls style. There are spikes everywhere, in the garden, by the graves, in a monastery, underwater. It must be part of the curse.
These moments of slow paced animations and simple ways to die are met with enemies that can hit you from off-screen with a long-ranged attack at ludicrous speeds. For example, the witches cackle before hurling a fastball at you at 90 miles per hour. Or how about the little eyeballs that lob grenades overhand as plant flies generally hover above you harmlessly, but descend on you as you're crossing over spikes. So, defeat them all or be prepared to evade, miss a double jump, and take damage without dying from the spike pit for .2 seconds before hearing the usual scream to red and black. The split second of damage before death is disappointing, as it gives you hope that you can do something to escape for just a moment but there's really nothing you can do.
There's a section of water next to a rabbit that collects flies, that if you jump into it, it kills you. All other water in this game has been for swimming, but this spot just kills you. Great.
Two of the boss fights are fan service.
Otherwise it's generally chill. Little animations when idle are a nice touch. The contact during combat is imperfect but then again you can play as a cat.
Your double jump is significantly worse than your first jump, to the point where it's frustrating how easily you can fall into spikes.
No fast travel available yet either which is mildly frustrating, as it's visible but grayed out for the first 10 bells you encounter and it makes you wonder if you missed unlocking it along the way, 3 hours in. Or is it something that needs to be bought and you just haven't found the correct vendor? Without a central hub area I can't be sure.