A fantastic love letter to Ninja Gaiden that still has it's own identity. This is an absolute must-play.

Originally 100% completed this game on the switch. Absolute banger soundtrack, fun gameplay, and goofy characters. A true 10/10.

It is indeed very good, but it has a bit of a tension that prevents it from being a true classic. For the first 30% of the game, it is an extremely linear retro platformer, then it opens up into a modestly scaled Metroidvania. The tension is in the timing of this switch though, as the retro action platformer portion is so long that it can mislead players. For players looking for action platformer, enough of a gameplay loop is established that when the Metroidvania structure is finally revealed and significant amounts of backtracking are required, the game can lose momentum. Many of the negative reviews on steam are specifically from this kind of player complaining about this specific experience. For the metroidvania-focused players, there are a lot of doubts for the first portion over whether the payoff is going to be worth the non-preferred gameplay loop of the first 30% of the game. Then when the metroidvania portion is revealed, the execution is not entirely satisfying. It is almost a Metroidvania-lite when it does open up.

The style and movement-response and writing and art-design are all phenomenal, though. It's humorous and beautiful and many of platformer puzzles are pretty pleasantly designed. It is a great game, but it does have an underlying structural indecision that prevents it from being a true classic of either genre.