I've beaten the 2nd boss and reached the depths. I'm hooked
This is such a solid metroidvania so far. The gameplay is solid, it feels great and responsive, and the spells/items/upgrades/skills offer quite a lot of variety in combat styles and options.
The level design is very well done, and new monsters and platforming segments fit it well: progression is satisfying and leaves me wanting to continue playing a little bit more, going a little bit further... All the time.
The 2nd boss was very cool btw.
My other favorite highlights so far are the lore and the artistic direction. About the lore, I increasingly understand what happened in this land, who are the characters and what are their relationships, as well as what rules structure this universe. And not only is it narrated well through characters and gameplay, it's also just pretty engrossing. It's otherworldly in a great way, even if there are themes like transhumanism, womanhood, etc. that partly cross over our reality. The Moon is a character! I also greatly appreciate that every aspect of the gameplay fits the lore and therefore narrates it to you. For example, if you die too often, the Moon gets hungry, resulting into clayborn monsters being stronger (inflicting more damage) but bones grinding into powder more easily (looting more money), powder you use to learn witchery or buy items. You can appease the moonhunger by making a blood offering (using a gland to restore the world to normalcy) though.
About the artistic direction, it's just sweet. This particular style of pixel art is very well used (the animations are amazing). The area where I've just ended up (the depths) use negative colors in such a dope way.
Dope game so far. Glad I stumbled upon this gem.
