An Amazing Wizard – 4 minutes. This one is a kind of nice looking, somewhat janky playing Metroidvania game where you play a wizard who can cast spells and augment them. I didn’t enjoy the combat or movement much in this with the recommended keyboard and mouse. Just a little too unpolished for me right now. 5/10
Bail Force: Cyberpunk Bounty Hunters – 8 minutes. This one is classified as a Metroidvania but feels like a 2D anime looking cyberpunk robot killing single screen eliminate them all with melee and guns type game. The music is decent. The sound really needs some work as it reminds me of PC games from the 90s with simple sound effects. Overall, it all feels simple and needs work to really be worth buying. I would get it bundled only. 5.5/10
Barbarian Saga: The Beastmaster – 7 minutes. This one is a 2D action barbarian pretty nice hand drawn, somewhat floaty controlling 2D Metroidvania game. The action is decent enough although your own hits lack a little impact and the enemies impact you a lot and you get this weird screen stop thing. The story was forgettable for what I played. This would be a bundle or a highly on sale one as it feels a bit unpolished currently. 6/10
Clockwork Ambrosia – 14 minutes. This one is a nicely animated 2D Metroidvania shooting type game where you explore, gather stuff, defeat enemies and get augments for your equipment. I’m not a huge fan of how I had to equip a different skirt to get a wall jump, but it’s alright. This was just a gameplay demo. The sound was nice as well. I couldn’t figure out where to go, but it played well enough and with a little polish and expansion this could be a solid game. 6.5/10
Combo Card Clashers: Prologue – 22 minutes. This one is a mix of auto battlers and deck builders. You pretty much have this grid I think it’s 4 by 4 or 5 by 5. You get to add a card to it every turn. These can include attacks, spells, buff spells, and utility spells. Overall, this felt very boring pretty quickly. It’s a really cool idea for a game, but this is a bit too basic. I think the game looks alright and used that generic card deck building graphics (Monster Slayers also used it). The map movement and stuff on the map just wasn’t unique or fun enough. I would only get it bundled, but it is solid enough to play. 6/10
Divine Guardian – 9 minutes. This one is a 2D generally good looking Metroidvania with a little guy and a world with Vietnamese gods and an world in ruin. This game is on Kickstarter I believe. The music is pretty solid as is the sound. The enemies are dark and blend in with the backgrounds, which is atmospheric but also hard to tell things. The character and enemies also look pretty small in comparison to the environment. The game runs relatively poorly on my system and felt like it was like 20 FPS overall. It never controlled amazingly well, but with lots of change and maybe Kickstarter funding this could be OK. Right now, it’s way too janky and slow. 5/10
Kickstarter
Doomblade – 8 minutes. This one is a very nice-looking kind of strange controlling 2D Metroidvania action game where you play some little demon thing I guess and are called by a blade. Once you have the blade you go slicing things all over and it feels floaty and action packed. The graphics are nice but during action get really frantic and very janky and hard to follow. The music during action is some heavy metal stuff. Jumping and Dashing are both done by with the left trigger on the Series X controller and you get used to it, but it just ends up feeling floatier. Overall, I liked enough of what I played, but it didn’t feel amazing. 6/10
Eden’s Guardian – 8 minutes. This one was a very good controlling well animated 2D Metroidvania souls like feeling game where you play some armored being and can do a lot of things. You need to dodge and jump to do good in battles. It was pretty fun and well-polished although it was tough. The sound and music were very good too. This one will have a Kickstarter eventually. I liked it enough that if it’s cheap I may go in on the Kickstarter. 7/10
Kickstarter
EMUUROM – 8 minutes. This one is a simple looking kind of trying to emulate older 2D platforming adventure games on the old computer systems. In this one you mainly go around and platform and search for things. You eventually get a scanner thing that can analyze stuff and help you along in your adventure. I liked the sound and music for sure. The controls were a bit okay, but not 100% great either. The jumping is clean enough, but the movement doesn’t feel as good. This is mainly for those like exploring and documenting stuff, which is not really my forte. 6/10
Exploaris: Vermis story – 7 minutes. This one is a 2D Metroidvania where you crash land on a planet. The dialogue (in text form) and the movement both feel very slow. The backgrounds are quite nice, but the animations for things look and feel janky, similar to Astlibra when I tried that out. I do think this has potential, but it needs a lot of polish and has already been in early access for a while. 5/10
Gedda Cake – 7 minutes. This one is a decent looking 2D Metroidvania about a dragon who was asleep and his siblings are around but he needs to eat and he is driven by food. This one feels wonky to control. The animations for attacking move your dragon quite a bit on the ground. Your jump is super high and air combat feels imprecise and awful. The sound effects are also kind of weird. This needs so much polish, but would be cool once you get to switch dragons around. Everything just felt like a bunch of adventuring with not as much yet though. 5.5/10
HAAK – 26 minutes. This one is a kind of future wasteland 2D Metroidvania with puzzle solving, lots of platforming, a decent story and atmosphere and it just felt really good. I liked the music and sound quite a bit. The movement was very decent although air attacks were a little weird to get used to, as was aiming your grapple with the Series X controller. I had a lot of fun with this and will get it if it gets bundled or on a deep sale. 7.5/10
Kādomon: Hyper Auto Battlers Prologue – 22 minutes died on boss for one run. This is an auto battlers which borrows from Pokémon. The graphics and everything are alright. Like other auto battlers you get bonuses from having certain monsters. It’s a little slow even on mid speed. It’s okay enough but pretty shallow overall. I don’t think this one brings enough to the auto battler formula to make it special. At least it doesn’t fall under the get three of a unit to upgrade it a level that many auto battlers do. Instead extras give exp and help to evolve the monsters eventually. 6.5/10
Makis Adventure – 22 minutes. This one is an action 2D Metroidvania game where you play a part where you escape prison. You can transform into a shark and fight some bosses and stuff. It was pretty good for what it was honestly. The fighting was a little janky at times especially for dodging, but otherwise was clean. I had a lot of fun with this demo and would get this game on a deeper sale or bundled. 6.5/10
Morkull Ragast's Rage – 9 minutes. This one is an okay action Metroidvania game where you play some skull guy who starts in jail. The graphics are pretty decent enough. The controls are kind of weird for shielding and such since every strike moves the screen a bit making it a bit disorienting. It gets a bit bad when there is like 3 or 4 enemies on screen. The movement itself is fine enough. Overall this one was okay but I would only get it very cheap or bundled. 5.5/10
The Perfect Pencil – 21 minutes. Probably one of the weirdest 2D Metroidvania where you play a thing without a head, get a camera on it and a pencil and mainly go around beating down sleepy people. It’s really weird, looks pretty good, feels a bit floaty and weird in combat, and the healing is weird where you charge and then need to land an attack. It’s interesting though a bit unpolished. At least it’s pretty original. 6/10
Rat Trap: Fuse 'em – 33 minutes completed demo. This one is a really inventive kind of more puzzle oriented Metroidvania where you play as a rat in a running ball. The graphics are good and the controls are solid enough with the Series X controller. Sometimes precision movement and shooting was not all there, but it was not floaty. The quirk of this one is you have a bunch of abilities and you can fuse your different characters together. An example is a rolling gun thing which can attach to the rat’s ball on the top. This is important for some puzzles as they require a certain number of characters to stand on pads to unlock things. This one was really fun and very original. I will look to get it bundled or just with a slighter sale. 7.5/10
Rebel Transmute – 8 minutes. This is a 2D Metroidvania that honestly leans more towards the Metroid part where you play a person waking up in a suit and have to go around opening areas and shooting enemies with alright sounds and graphics. The controls with the Series X controller aren’t amazing as the movement feels a bit too weighty and the jumps a bit too floaty. It all feels a little loose. This one got some funds on Kickstarter, and hopefully will become a really good one, as it has potential. Right now it didn’t feel super amazing to play. 6/10
Sorry We're Closed – 22 minutes died after getting ambushed. This one is a really weird old school feeling Resident Evil type game where you end up in the demon world because of a curse and must fight and explore through it. It seemed interesting enough although the battle system is a little weird where you go first person to attack things. You can also hit weak points to get rid of things faster. Overall I liked this enough, but these aren’t really my type of games. It still felt polished enough although the battles could be a lot easier to transition to. 6.5/10
Soul Devourer – 10 minutes. This one is a game where you play some school girl with a katana in some demon infested realm. It controls okay enough although the battle hits feel a little off. The art is decent. There are devils and that’s mainly the story other than a bunch of people dying. I didn’t like that you couldn’t naturally turn off rumble (I don’t like rumble anymore) and the screen shake when attacking (not too bad at least). Overall, just pretty average but playable nonetheless. 6/10
Summum Aeterna – 10 minutes. Solid enough feeling (not the cleanest animation) more Castlevania feeling Metroidvania where you just kill a lot of stuff and it has some rogue lite elements as well like only keeping 1 weapon and upgrading it. The controls were okay enough although dodging wasn’t that clean mainly cause enemy animation can blend into the background a bit and don’t stand out as much. I was just really bored playing this. It didn’t feel terrible, but it felt like one of those games you get in a bundle that is trying to be like some greater game and just ends up feeling average and forgettable if you play it. Would only get bundled. 6/10
Transiruby - 6 minutes. This one is a Metroidvania adjacent to Cave Story with similar aesthetics and sound. This one you’re just a world searching for your stuff and it played alright. Nothing too amazing, but solid enough to get bundled or on a heavier sale. 6.5/10
Trinity Fusion – 25 minutes. This one is an action rogue lite supposed Metroidvania (yeah right) kind of Dead Cells like game where you fight through areas gathering stuff and at the end of the area you fight some boss. There are upgrades and bonuses along the way with one use items as well. I think this game was solid enough, but also didn’t feel like it had too much variety and the action was getting very repetitive already. This feels like something you’d be fine with getting from a bundle, which is where I’d get it. It controls relatively well and also looks alright. It’s just pretty alright in all ways including some decent enough English voices. 6.5/10
Whirlwind Magician – 4 minutes. This is one is a pretty basic 2D Metroidvania magician pixel game where you can throw your hat to attack. They recommend keyboard and mouse for the hat throwing aiming. It was alright, but didn’t surprise or excite much honestly. It just felt like a cozy game I’d play for a few minutes from a bundle. 5.5/10
