Rabi-Ribi

Ok, I'm just going to go ahead and call out the elephant in the room here. This is a terrible Metroidvania game overall. I decided to try it out because of the overwhelmingly positive ratings. I admit, the preview videos didn't look like much, but the reviews and ratings absolutely raved about it and I figured there must be something I am missing. I'm about 2 hours in to the game (combination PC and steam deck, so of course the game time showing at the top of this review is bugged). I have absolutely no idea what people are raving about. There is literally nothing here that is enjoyable, and I'm a huge fan of Metroidvanias. I don't know if I'm missing something, but I really cannot understand why anyone would play this other than the various artwork girls. The maps are so horribly boring. There's retro, and then there's lack of any effort whatsoever. Super Mario Bros from the 90's had more interesting platform maps than this game. I can't believe how boring the maps are considering this is hand made and not procgen. The movement is super sluggish, slow, and unrewarding. Combat is even worse... The hammer attacks are slow, not super responsive, and you can't even attack while jumping. The magic works ok from the faerie, so at least there is that. The fights are really, really slow and bosses are super spongy just to make the fights longer. The bullet hell mechanics in the boss fights are a little bit interesting, but then there are completely unavoidable attacks in some of them which is a super no no in bullet hell games. As an example, the lab girl when you free the other two faeries... she has an ability that draws squares of laser beams, and moves all the way to the side of the room wherever you are. Nothing you can do to avoid being damaged. No place to run, jump, or hide. Just bad design. I presume I'm missing some kind of dash ability that would make that untrue but.... I dunno. And the dialogue.... it's extraordinarily juvenile. I can honestly deal with some of that but there is so much of it and it is so childish. I mean I like games, and I even like some cute games but the 5 year old level dialogue is just a bit too forward for my taste. I am really struggling with the idea of dumping more of my life into this seemingly sub-par waste of hard drive space. I might continue to try for a bit, because so many people say this is a good game but... I just don't see it yet for sure. I know that this is very popular, but just in case there are others who want to see a dissenting opinion, well.. here you go.

I've never played any form of metroidvania before so this is a first into that type of game. I can 100% say it was really fun to go around and explore. You did have a story to go along with so you weren't really "lost" most of the time and as you explored you generally found everything you needed to beat the game. All of the bosses were pretty fun to fight and nothing felt "unfair" because you sort of have an out with a certain amulet you get somewhere around halfway through the game. Overall I enjoyed it a lot, wasn't one of my favorite games of all time or one that im going to go out of my way to get all the achievements for but for the price and the time I played it I can certainly say its worth a try.

One of my fav bullet hells, cute artstyle, challenging gameplay

I LOVE UNDODGEABLE ATTACKS I LOVE 20 MINUTE BOSS FIGHTS I LOVE MY CHARGED MAGIC NOT FUCKING DOING ANYTHING

THIS SHIT IS ASS SO BORING BAD PLAYZ

goty material