In this episode of “buying random older games because nothing is coming out right now”, this is a Metroidvania that I thought looked a bit interesting. It’s made by a studio in Israel, and as far as I can find it’s that company’s first game, which is pretty cool (and the studio itself seems a bit strange, actually being the internal game development company of a school? Huh).

So let’s check it out!

Developer: Clover Bite
Publisher: Akupara Games
Release date: August 2, 2021
Platforms: PC, Switch (PC version reviewed)
Genre: Metroidvania

Review

Honestly, I have no idea what’s going on story-wise. This is some weird world where people are made of stone and very deformed. Like vaguely human but there are some obvious defects, like massive heads and disproportionate limbs. You play as… actually your character doesn’t have an official name that I can find, it seems. Carven, Akhlan, Endgiver… he’s given many names/titles… What is important about him is that his head is a black hole, and his body is perfectly proportionate, making him the subject of many prophecies or something. Some characters revere him, others see him as a danger, some use him for their own ends, and either way it seems like you have one job; ending the world. The world itself looks pretty cool, it’s this weird creepy wasteland where things are kinda weirdly shaped, but a lot of it is shaped vaguely-human-ish, or are just giant hands and heads and stuff. I’m sure if you really dig into what the game gives you, there’s something interesting here plot-wise, but none of it clicked with me. So to me what it really gave me is a pretty cool-looking world to explore.

PC performance is pretty solid. At 1440p Ultra settings, I was running most of the game at a ~160fps average. Some areas would go up to a bit over 200fps if I wasn’t moving, but one specific flower-themed area tanked performance to ~90fps, which I probably could’ve worked around by turning off some visual effects that are a bit heavier in that part of the game. Overall though, no remarkable problems here. I did notice a few weird glitches that I don’t think have to do with it being the PC version (falling through some platforms (especially if it’s an elevator), going through some walls). There’s one issue that I think is some weirdness going on in my PC, some games just do that thing where, if I’m running a youtube video in the background in Chrome, the game freezes visually (to a previous state), but the game is still running so I can pause, kill Chrome, then get back in. Not sure how that’s going on, might just be something stupid like hardware acceleration on Chrome. Why am I trying to troubleshoot in a review?

So gameplay-wise, this is a Metroidvania, with a melee focus as far as combat. It’s fairly standard as far as what it does. You have access to 2 attack buttons, one for normal attacks, one for special attacks (each weapon has a different special attack). You can jump, which is very mildly floaty and has good air control. You can dash. Eventually you can dash in the air. The dash has some level of invincibility, it goes through enemies, and has the ability to go through tight spaces. You have 4 buttons for consumables, which is set to the d-pad (which sucks because that means you can’t move with the d-pad, and trying to change the controls meant having the items on the analog stick, and that didn’t actually work). Items are fairly useless for the most part, the best ones are those that replenish breath. Breath is a meter that, when full, you can use to heal a bunch of your HP. Eventually you get more Breath meters, so you can heal more. Most actions take Force, which you have a VERY limited pool of, and while it recovers fairly fast, it never feels fast enough. Jumping takes a very little bit (and you can actually still jump if you’re empty), attacking and dashing takes a ton. In both combat and movement, it’s important to keep Force in mind.

Combat is fairly straightforward. Weaker enemies are barely worth caring about most of the time (after facing an enemy once or twice they won’t be able to kill you anymore, they’re pretty easy), but fights against bosses are way more interesting. You have a basic combo with whichever weapon you have (though that varies per weapon), which is probably the best choice as far as attacks. You’ll be dashing and back-stepping a bunch to avoid attacks. Dashing does have some invincibility. The bosses don’t quite have patterns though, more specifically they have a set of attacks that they basically choose between randomly once their current attack is done. So a lot of combat is finding moments in those attacks where you can hit, or positioning yourself out of range of attacks. A big portion of fighting is the counter mechanic. Many attacks can be countered, which stops the current attack and deals some damage. What countering also does is, in some cases, initiate different attacks from the boss. Sometimes more counterable ones, sometimes it just gives you a bit of time to get a few more hits in. If the boss (or his weapon) glows red, that is not counterable, though there’s a few other instances of attacks that don’t seem to be counterable without that red glow. Stuff like fire or red spikes I believe are other instances of attacks you need specifically to avoid. Countering may also recover some Ardor (Ardor is something that powers you up if you have a bunch, you tend to get it from killing enemies, and lose a bit when you get hit).

Countering normal enemies has a side effect, which is part of powering up. Life bars for normal enemies may have red portions or grey portions. If a live bar ends with a red portion, means this enemy can be absorbed. By countering while the life bar is in that final red portion, you finish up the enemy, and absorb them. This isn’t something super useful, except for how you power up (though it does help in fighting normal enemies since it gives a bit of their HP that can be taken out in one hit). Each enemy that can be absorbed must be done so a few times, which gives you their Prey skill. A Prey skill is something you can unlock by using Hunt points. These are pretty limited, as Hunt points are given to you by unique stronger enemies that don’t respawn when you go back to an area. Each skill takes more hunt points for further levels, and you can spend orbs to respec points. Other than that, killing enemies (and breaking shit in the environment) gives you Mass. You spend mass either in stores (which I don’t recommend), powering up weapons (alongside using some red crystals) or leveling up your character in 5 stats. Health, Force, Strength, Dexterity and Resonance. Health and Force are just more of those meters. Strength, Dex and Res allow you to equip certain weapons (every weapon has a stat minimum) and each weapon also has some level of stat mastery level, so they may get better attack boosts from, say, Strength, than they do with other stats.

Outside of battle, you’re doing some Metroidvania stuff, just walking around finding where to go next. As far as Metroidvanias it’s a pretty linear one. There’s side spots which may have good item pick-ups or minibosses to get some Hunt points, or bigger minibosses that may give you a max breath increase. There is a map, but it requires finding a beacon to not just show the map of the current area, but even just fill it out as you’re going through it. Though the maps aren’t TOO complicated, it’s still nice to finally get a beacon, though it actually tends to happen when you’re pretty far into an area anyways, so it’s more useful for finding optional stuff than it is for actually progressing. As far as travel, you do unlock new moves as you progress that let you go to places you couldn’t before (and some parts are just locked behind killing specific bosses or finding specific items). The Pull move lets you move certain objects towards you which has a lot of interesting applications. The dash can eventually be done in the air, enabling you to get into small holes that aren’t just on the ground. And eventually a double-jump. One thing that kinda sucks is backtracking if you want to explore older areas with new skills. There’s basically just a few specific teleport points, and they’re kinda awfully placed and annoying to get to/from, except for one. The checkpoints actually do become teleport points… which would be GREAT if you didn’t get that skill literally at the exact end of the game, making it completely useless because you just need to go to a thing and press one button to end the game.

I will note there are at least 2 endings. Maybe 3, I’m actually not sure.

Overall

This was a pretty good game. The Metroidvania aspect mostly works, the combat is pretty good especially against bosses… not too much to complain about. I do wish the ability to teleport wasn’t a useless endgame thing you don’t even get to use (since, at that point, you’re done with the game), and there’s some areas that I find the checkpoints to be too far separated (and in some areas that becomes a null point since a lot of shortcuts end up making some of the areas pretty fast to go through). A lot of my play time was spent dying and walking back to the place I died… sometimes just to die again.

I guess what I can say is that, while it doesn’t do anything offensively bad, it doesn’t do anything all that new and unique. It just does what many other Metroidvanias do and does them pretty well.

I give this one an okay recommendation.