Aggelos

Estamos ante una versión mejorada de lo que serían los antiguos wonder boy roleros, de los cuales tenían ligeros toques de metroidvania. Siguiendo aquellos juegos, aggelos pone una historia muy simple como excusa de la aventura y nos pone a dar vueltas por el mundo, donde iremos subiendo niveles, consiguiendo corazones a lo zelda, comprando nuevas armas y armaduras, y aprendiendo nuevas técnicas y magias que nos ayudaran a acceder a nuevas áreas, y algunas de las cuales son bastante originales y deberemos utilizar de maneras muy inventivas en ocasiones para resolver puzzles. El juego tiene buena dificultad en su modo estándar (comienza fácil pero se vuelve desafiante), pero cuidado con elegir la dificultad "difícil" ya que una vez comenzada la partida no podréis cambiarla, y es MUCHO más desafiante que lo que hoy en día ponen como ese mismo modo en muchos juegos (no solo los enemigos tienen más vida y golpean más fuerte, si no que son endiabladamente más rápidos) haciendo que tengas que perfeccionar tu combate para hasta los enemigos normales hasta prácticamente el principio (no hablar de los jefes), y cuando lleguemos a la parte final del juego, los jefes son brutales incluso con todo maximizado... avisados estáis. Por lo demás este es un juego genialmente divertido, y recomendado sobre todo si lo pilláis de oferta ya que si no su precio puede resultar un poco elevado.

A nostalgic side-scrolling adventure, meets metroidvania, that hits almost all the high notes. Reminiscent of the spectacular Wonderboy games of the past, Aggelos brings a tidy package that joyfully blends the retro with the modern to provide a well-rounded and often challenging adventure. Feeling like you are stepping back in time has become somewhat of a normality in modern day Indie gaming, and my time with Aggelos was no different. Not to say this was unwelcome, with Aggelos feeling as though it would have fit perfectly between the 8-bit era of the NES and the 16-bit era of the SNES. Offering a to-the-point adventure lasting approximately 6-10 hours, you will find yourself engrossed in a compact journey to save the…insert generic storyline here. Sadly, the story of Aggelos was often forgettable, with the real highlights being the gameplay and combat, the well-designed regions/dungeons, and a metroidvania search-a-thon charm that was hard to resist. Traversing the colourful overworld was always enjoyable, dodging an array of diverse enemy types that felt appropriate to their environments, while also searching high and low for hidden upgrades, hearts, and weapons, that were never quite as conveniently located as they could have been. Fortunately, a helpful NPC offering suggestions for your next course of action makes up for the annoyingly unhelpful in-game map and lack of minimap. Each new overworld zone is quite short in the grand scheme of things, maintaining a consistent feeling of progression as you move from one area to the next. Like any metroidvania, backtracking is prominent here, however a well-designed fast travel system makes this a non-issue in the later stages of the game. While there was a lot to love while playing Aggelos, there were also a few issues including an inconsistent difficulty level towards the later parts of the game, and a game-breaking bug in the Nintendo Switch version, which at the time of this review, rendered the game unfinishable. While starting out as almost deceptively easy, the third dungeon brings about a sudden spike in challenge that felt unbalanced. The music was another less than impressive component of the game, with a repetitive soundtrack that felt appropriate to the style, genre, and locales, but never exceeded my expectations for what an incredible musical score in a game could be. In general, it was difficult to not be impressed by Aggelos, considering it was put together by Storybird - a single person studio – and still holds the quality and production value **** completed by much larger teams, and with much larger budgets. Overall, I am very happy to have played Aggelos, finding that its triumphs far outweighed any drawbacks of the experience. A sequel is more than welcome, and with a few tweeks, this series has potential to become something special. Highlights: - Solid adventure with a strong nostalgic feel and well-integrated metroidvania gameplay. - Enjoyable combat system that was easy to learn and master. - Not afraid to challenge you with its wide variety of interesting enemies and bosses. - Dungeons felt well designed and structured, including some puzzle elements. Lowlights: - The story felt fairly generic but accomplished the goal of providing reasonable context. - The music could be repetitive and did not stand out for the genre. - Difficulty was inconsistent between the first and second halves of the game. - Early version bugs in the Nintendo Switch port, rendering the game unfinishable. GossipGaymer Score: 8/10