Recent reviews by Duiliath

It's not terribly bad but this game is shocking in how mediocre and forgettable every aspect of it is. Extremely linear platforming until clearing a level then repeatedly backtracking through the same overly basic platforming sections to get 1 or 2 light orbs. The combat is astounding in how basic and repetitive and quick time event heavy it is with the same few forgettable enemies that are supposed to be bosses but feel like jank tutorial fights and have nothing memorable about them. The platforming is the most inconsistently paced and basic out of the franchise by far and combat is worst as well. It's like everything is padded and stripped down into an unfailable pseudo-cinematic art project.

Awaken your inner masochist and die dozens of times in your true quest to defeat the glorious golden god that is Radiant Grey Prince Zote. Now you have purpose in your life.

Looks and sounds much better than it plays. While the story is cute and the art style and music are very nice the controls are baffling for a platformer. Everything from jumping to climbing ledges to switching seasons and even turning the other direction are needlessly slow and feels like there's input lag for everything. Even the environmental effects, moving platforms and bugs needed to progress are slow. In the beginning the response time is quite bad and slowly improves as you collect the seasons. Then it improves greatly after the prologue(/halfway point?) but even then the controls are not immediately responsive like one would expect from a platformer. The physics is also inconsistent with momentum while changing seasons: on moving platforms you'll sometimes travel with it while changing seasons, other times you'll stay in place and will fall ( which is a bit frustrating since all the moving platforms are slow and often out of sync with each other so leads to more waiting.)

The gameplay is hit or miss: no combat and very simple puzzles that block progress to fetch-quest style platforming. I enjoyed most of it and the story and visuals make up for some of it for me but others may hat that. Collecting the flowers and going through the story may also be considered disorienting or tedious since there is no map and no way to check the flowers collected without leaving the area and returning.

i experienced a couple of times when I needed to quit because of a bug or poor game design: one time at a wind rock the floor collapsed and I fell indefinitely. Another time I got stuck in a crevasse formed by a vine in the seed cocoon that was impossible to escape. I don't know if I should count the inconsistent momentum while changing seasons on moving platforms as a bug but it was definitely the most annoying thing about the game. At points the music was absent entirely, not sure if this was intentional or for atmosphere but the silence lasted for long stretched during the 2nd half of the game.

If you just really want to control a magic fox with a bark button and can deal with lackluster-tediously slow gameplay get this on sale, otherwise I can't recommend this.

The first half of the game is very tiresome as all of the puzzles are very simple with few options that could even allow you to fail at solving them making them unsatisfying. The dialogue is also a bit frustrating since the main character never questions anything and blindly follows instructions in a way that makes the plot seem very predictable and cliche. After the half way point however the puzzles became better, if not particularly challenging, with more mechanics being introduced, and the story had more development.

The full game takes only about 5 hours to finish and the simplistic puzzles for the first half of the game make this really not worth the $25 it's being sold for and even people with it already may find it a chore to get past the lackluster beginning. That being said the second half make the experience much more enjoyable and the voice acting, graphic design and gameplay mechanics are rather good for such a small team. It just seems like this could've been so much better if not for the poor level design. I'd say I recommend this if you have a few hours to waste and can get the game on sale but with tempered expectations.

Shadwen is fun little stealth game which has the premise of escorting a little girl each level by distracting or killing guards.
The story is seemingly simple at first but the way it is told is by eavesdropping on guards talking and piecing small details together. It's easy to miss some details the first playthrough but this is a game that benefits from multiple runs because of the choice to either kill or distract guards without affecting the story unless you get caught. If you're after achievments You will need to go through the full game at least twice, one killing everyone and one killing no one but there are areas catered towards one or the other so it's more enjoyable to adapt to the situation. If Lily sees a dead body either from you or a suicidal guard you can rewind time but one of the achievements requires you to be caught before the end of the game, unfortunately the status remains even if you use chapter select to play from the begining of the game again which can prevent the trophy for completeing the game without being caught by Lily.

The gameplay is really fun for a handful of hours at a time but it becomes a chore because the majority of the time you will be waiting for NPCs to very slowly walk and turn around or to slowly drag corpses to a hay pile. Because of this the ability to rewind time is a godsend but really removes the risk of being detected at the expense of wasting more time, which is what some of the longer levels start to feel like.

Over all this is a fun game that has more passion than a budget put into it but if you can get past the stiff controls and waiting, this can offer a good amount of enjoyment.