jariw
Moblin
The Combat/Chatter/Pacing/Level Design are connected. The things accelerates throughout the game. At the start, you're underpowered, you move slowly, and there's a LOT of story elements. At the end, you're overpowered, you breeze quickly through the levels, and the cut scenes are very far apart.I’m currently over 3 hours into this game after picking up after a sale, and after all of the praise it got back 2 months ago and my personal excitement I had for it back when it was announced, I have to say I’m pretty whelmed so far. It’s not bad but after all of the 9/10 scores and people saying it was up there with Metroid Dread in terms of quality I just can’t say I see it. There’s just alot of little things that are adding up for me:
The Combat: Enemies take way, way too long to kill on normal difficulty. I had to set the difficulty to easy and even then I’m still wailing on soldiers for quite a while before they die. And even with their health lowered I still end up running past most of them to save on time and health. Combat itself is fun but not particularly interesting
The Chatter: This is a chatty game. Yes it improves after a certain point but it’s still a pace breaker when it happens. I don’t want to skip any dialogue but I also want to get a move on sometimes.
No Minimap: I don’t even know how this happened, I’m constantly pulling up the whole map to see where I am. Not the end of the world but it’s a very baffling exclusion.
The Level Design: I saw this be one of the most praised aspects of the game, but in my opinion the rooms tend to be too large and empty, and there’s several rooms that just straight up have nothing in them for some reason.
The Pacing: Maybe I’m spoiled by Metroid games but it takes hours between getting new power ups, which is what I personally believe to be the draw of MetroidVanias. But progress just feels extremely slow here, both with how long it takes to get places, constant talking moments bogging down the pacing, and with how far apart meaningful power-ups are. Also apparently this game is 20 hours??? I don’t think I can do another 15 hours of this game, even if I was loving it.
I really want to love this game after all the praise it got & my love for Metroid Dread. Unfortunately I just don’t and it bums me out. Maybe I don’t love MetroidVanias as much as I think I do as I’m also one of the only people on planet Earth that really doesn’t care for Hollow Knight but I’m not sure. I loved Ori 2, and it’s not like that game plays like Metroid Dread. But please tell me what I’m missing with this game that has people so enamored with it. I want to love it too
If you encounter screens where there's nothing, there's probably something there after all (such as a puzzle).
IMO, the best way to experience the game is to not try to turn it into a game it isn't. Metroid Dread, HK, PoP, Ori all have different game designs.