I find that the best definition of a niche game is a game that has features that would normally be considered faults, but to the intended audience they are perks that make the game or games special. For this game those faults are constant backtracking, secrets that no normal person would be expected to find, and parts of the game which require little more than patience and determination to get through.
And I love this game for this. The game rewards exploration, has a host of amazing abilities, catchy music, weird and interesting art, albeit a bit Freudian at times. I only really started playing metroidvania's about september last year, and I wasn't born during the "golden" age or the SNES or Playstation, and that shows how good this game is. I have no nostalgia towards that time, and this game is still very strong in my eye's.

It has some non-niche faults however, I was constantly dying, but I have sub-par reflexes especially with a keyboard so that is probably more my fault than the game's, and the difficulty is rather inconsistent, going from brutal to easy from zone to zone. There was also a part of the game that gave me motion sickness and where it was near impossible to see the enemies I was fighting, one of the few moments where putting my head down and pushing through didn't feel satifying. As well while there are a lot of fun weapons you will usually find yourself only using 2-3 that are really practical, as most are awesome to watch but pale in comparaision to the high-DPS vanilla shot, the wall ignoring electric shotgun, and the delayed detonation explosive ball to deal with powerfull enemies without getting close to them. All three of which you get in the first two hours of the game.

I find that the best definition of a niche game is a game that has features that would normally be considered faults, but to the intended audience they are perks that make the game or games special. For this game those faults are constant backtracking, secrets that no normal person would be expected to find, and parts of the game which require little more than patience and determination to get through. And I love this game for this. The game rewards exploration, has a host of amazing abilities, catchy music, weird and interesting art, albeit a bit Freudian at times. I only really started playing metroidvania's about september last year, and I wasn't born during the "golden" age or the SNES or Playstation, and that shows how good this game is. I have no nostalgia towards that time, and this game is still very strong in my eye's. It has some non-niche faults however, I was constantly dying, but I have sub-par reflexes especially with a keyboard so that is probably more my fault than the game's, and the difficulty is rather inconsistent, going from brutal to easy from zone to zone. There was also a part of the game that gave me motion sickness and where it was near impossible to see the enemies I was fighting, one of the few moments where putting my head down and pushing through didn't feel satifying. As well while there are a lot of fun weapons you will usually find yourself only using 2-3 that are really practical, as most are awesome to watch but pale in comparaision to the high-DPS vanilla shot, the wall ignoring electric shotgun, and the delayed detonation explosive ball to deal with powerfull enemies without getting close to them. All three of which you get in the first two hours of the game.