I jumped into The Messenger after I finished playing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night because I was thirsty for some more "metroidvania" action. While it does have a classic "metroidvania" feel to it, it's quite linear at first. You battle your way through a few different areas with a boss battle at the end of each area, slowly revealing the plot to you as you move along.

Once you get to a certain point though the game opens up in true "metroidvania" style and that's when the fun begins. The world is pretty large and there's definitely a fair amount of backtracking but between the tight controls and the handful of skills and traversal techniques you unlock along the way, this game never fails to make you feel like a total badass as you hack and slash, jump, grapple, cloudstep and swim through the world.

The game also has a pretty amazing soundtrack and an entertaining and comical cast. It's fairly well written and the story doesn't fail to compel you even up to the very end.

There is a new game + but I don't really foresee myself playing this again with the massive backlog of games in my steam library but some might see fit to make several playthroughs.

I really enjoyed this one and would definitely like to see more from this developer.