It’s a Metroidvania in vein of Castlevania. In particular the DS Castlevanias. All achievements is roughly 8 hours, all crafting recipes is more like 12.

The big thing is that it’s a good deal slower/stiffer than the DS Castlevanias. It’s a very different feel and is fairly divisive, however I think it’s unique and combat is pretty satisfying.

It’s technically not a proper RPG, all weapons and equipment must be crafted. You can craft from the pause menu at any time, and any enemy drop is around a 50/50 shot. Additionally almost all attacks consume MP. On paper these sound like potentially annoying or bad mechanics, but in reality I’ve never heard anyone seriously criticize these things with how they’re executed.

Also note that the game only gently guides you through the intended boss order, it’s very easy to walk into a later boss and get hit with a difficulty spike. Odds are if there’s a tough boss you either need to try allies you have or are simply skipping things.

Lastly, the game is fairly easy and there’s no plans for a hard mode or NG+. Things like musical scores and the item shop in particular are your “easy mode” buttons, and the tier 2 summons I’d argue are “normal mode.” The game was actually balanced around not having said “easy mode” things according to interviews.

I recommend almost the entire 2D catalog from Inti Creates, though if you get me talking about all of those I’ll be here all day lol

Originally posted by Lancer:

It’s a Metroidvania in vein of Castlevania. In particular the DS Castlevanias. All achievements is roughly 8 hours, all crafting recipes is more like 12.

The big thing is that it’s a good deal slower/stiffer than the DS Castlevanias. It’s a very different feel and is fairly divisive, however I think it’s unique and combat is pretty satisfying.

It’s technically not a proper RPG, all weapons and equipment must be crafted. You can craft from the pause menu at any time, and any enemy drop is around a 50/50 shot. Additionally almost all attacks consume MP. On paper these sound like potentially annoying or bad mechanics, but in reality I’ve never heard anyone seriously criticize these things with how they’re executed.

Also note that the game only gently guides you through the intended boss order, it’s very easy to walk into a later boss and get hit with a difficulty spike. Odds are if there’s a tough boss you either need to try allies you have or are simply skipping things.

Lastly, the game is fairly easy and there’s no plans for a hard mode or NG+. Things like musical scores and the item shop in particular are your “easy mode” buttons, and the tier 2 summons I’d argue are “normal mode.” The game was actually balanced around not having said “easy mode” things according to interviews.

I recommend almost the entire 2D catalog from Inti Creates, though if you get me talking about all of those I’ll be here all day lol

Wow, thank you for this informative answer.

I am on the hunt for the greatest games in this genre.