Recent reviews by Mindes Endian

The central mechanic (hypercharge) is so good it could carry the game by itself, but luckily it doesn't have to. Incredible flow, great platforming, super tight design. Fantastic videogame.

A soft, fluffy yuri that feels nice and warm. If you're feeling down, it could lift your spirits and brighten your day.

Shizuku stood out to me for how well realized she was as a character. The facial expressions, Live2D animation and voice acting came together perfectly to express her curt, reserved demeanor and caring disposition.

Incredible action game. It might take some adjustment coming from the previous games, but Copen feels so good to play in this game and the bosses are super fun.

The decision to lock the true ending behind Hard mode was a little baffling at the time, but it forced me to actually learn the character and the fights and that mode is where the game ends up shining the brightest. It's taken me three years to finally beat the final boss but the journey to get here has been entirely worth it.

With well designed levels, boss fights and mechanics for two distinct characters, it's great fun casually and it's made with beginner players in mind. But where it really shines is in advanced, stylish play, when you try not to get hit, go fast and build up combos for very high scores. It's immensely rewarding to learn how to play it well, and it has a bunch of secrets to find and optional challenges to clear.

It lost steam for me towards the end, to be completely honest, but I still have to recommend it for Ciara's silly yuri antics.

At first you obtain lots of new combat abilities at a pretty good clip, and they're a good reward for exploration. But later in the game there aren't that many and most of what you get is new equipment that you have to constantly fit with magic cores. There's too much menuing.

The mobility upgrades are also few and far between. You get them very infrequently, because the game is just too long. Progression through the map mostly involves lock and key design and a lot of shortcut unlocking, much like a Souls game. If you're a fan of the Castlevania side of the genre, you'll probably like it very much, and there is a lot of game here if that's what you want. I prefer my level design tighter though, so I already got kinda tired three quarters of the way through.

It's a fine game. It's a little janky, but Ciara is just too funny and charming. I'm glad I played it if only for her.

Let's be honest, this game has a ton of flaws.

The fast travel system works in a terrible way that makes the first few hours an absolute nightmare.

Progression and mechanics are poorly explained and presented. Towards the middle of the game there's a part where you almost need to buy an expensive item in order to level up and make progress. And if you've spent that money... well you're out of luck. Grind, idle the game, whatever. Does discarding items make you earn more money from the fountain? I'd like to know but I can't check that tutorial again. But actually... if you know that you can freeze water, you don't really need it. But maybe you try to freeze with a subweapon and it doesn't work and you give up... because you don't know that it's random whether you freeze it or not, because it requires a critical hit! Or maybe you grab one of the 100% guaranteed to freeze seeds and fail because you throw it directly on the water and it doesn't activate unless it hits a wall or the floor and it explodes. So, you get stuck on this one section.

Then the HP levels (at least on Veteran) are terribly balanced. It's impossible to try to fight the bosses with your main weapons only because you won't get anywhere, but then if you rely on subweapons you'll beat them with little effort, not having to learn their patterns, especially if you make super powerful broken setups. They're simply unfun no matter what you do, and it's a shame because with a little tuning they could be challenging, interesting fights like the ones in the first game.

Speaking of that first game... I like Kirika and Masha well enough, but the characters and the writing here never reach even a fraction of the charm of the first game, sadly. The best moments in the game in general are when the Kamizono sisters are on screen and that shouldn't be the case.

Requirement for true ending is pretty annoying and needs better transparency.

And yet despite all this... the game is actually really fun. General movement and exploration is good enough and all but once you get the super dash the game changes because it's just stupid fun to run around the whole map blasting everything and finding every little thing. The way movement upgrades are given out by levelling up is unique and interesting. If I've seen another metroidvania do it then I certainly don't remember.

It's a very fun game that got its hooks on me and also managed to infuriate me, so at least it made me feel something and I kinda value that a lot nowadays. It's better than a boring safe middle of the road metroidvania that makes me feel numb while playing it and doesn't inspire a rant this long afterwards. Take that as you will.

A precision platformer in which you have to figure out how to progress by using a bat to launch yourself, bounce around and manipulate your momentum. From what I've played and watched, it is extremely cool and it seems to be really well designed, but it's also clearly not a game for me. My playtime as of this review shows when I realized I was not going to finish it.

ENDER LILIES was more my vibe, but this is still a great game, roughly on the same level. There are some improvements, some things I like less. It differentiates itself well, while carrying the same spirit.

You don't even Knower, and you think you can Fixer?

One of those where I almost kinda struggle to call it a metroidvania...? because progression is purely through story and locks and keys. It's honestly great, though. Good mechanics, nice boss fights and a few fairly inoffensive frustration points.