Difficult to recommend.

Does a great job at mimicking the NES era, but fails to deliver a unique or interesting experience. Feels mostly devoid of personality in it's music, level design, characters, and art.

The gameplay itself is slow, boring, and littered with poor design choices. Deaths feel sufficiently punishing, but not always fair... leading to many mind-numbingly slow run-backs through areas you've already backtracked, and will likely need to backtrack again once you're in the late game.

Alwa's Awakening is a game that desperately needs, but lacks, a late-game speed/sprint power-up and a map upgrade for finding collectibles. As it is, you're practically forced to rely on drawing your own collectible map. And even then, it's an absolute slog to find everything you need for progression... let alone all 99 optional orbs.

If you must play Alwa's awakening, do yourself a favor and learn how to double jump off of your blocks and chain your bubbles. These unintentional gameplay mechanics are great for skill expression, allow for sequence breaking, and are the only fun and rewarding movement options you're going to find.

(This is a review from someone who, in spite of better judgment... did 100% Alwa's Awakening.)

So i walked through a "safe area" doorway and ended up in the abyss, bouncing off the walls forever