RealNova

The game is good in what it does, hitting the enemies is responsive and satisfying, but there isn't much content here, the game will not last you long and there is no alternative route or cool secrets. It's a 6.5, would be a 7.5 if it was balanced, unfortunately getting the top score in some stages is laughably hard while in others it's a joke

the level design is good, but the controls sometimes do not work, I had a bug that made me restart a whole stage (and they are long), and overall the game is not polished at all, it feels clunky in most things, also it is very short

The game is good but to derivative, it feels like a copy of Rayman 2 with a slight Medieval and Jak and dexter vibe into it. But at least it's enjoyable and well made, cannot say the same for that Kao 1

The game feels dull, monotonous and with the worst color pallet I might I have ever seen in a videogame, everything is gray, you can barely distinguish the enemies from the background, and I do not care about being "gritty", grey≠gritty, also there is nothing intense about this game, the dialogue is so juvinile and full of millenial writing moments and the story is as basic as humanly possible, characters are written like caricatures, and you are telling me this is a game to take seriously and that should be all dark and gritty? I know that in 2006 millenial writing wasn't so overused but as today it's still annoying to hear it. Even if we ignore all that the game it's still boring and frustrating for how unprecise the controls feel and how unfair the level design is, but even with that the game is weirdly easy because of the fast self healing and the abusable covers who protect you from any time of damage, so basically you either win without effort or die randomly because 3 enemies spawned right next to you. Music is the classic cringe moviegame soundtrack, the shooting is werdly unprecise even with long range weapons, only positive thing is the reload mechanic and the fact that all weapons feel heavy and impactful. I know the game popularized cover shooters but I don't really know if that is a good thing, I like cover mechanics on paper but I have yet to see a game implement it well, they always do that stupid thing that this game started doing, that you need a button to both enter into a cover position and to detach from it, it limits the flow of your movement so much, why not just have the character take cover when you press against it or after you crouch.

POSITIVES: Great art design. Innovative, fun and strategic turn based combat. All dialoges are rhymed to sell that fable vibe and narrative. Shorter that the average RPG. Finding all the tresures is addictive. Perfect difficulty balance which is rewarding, with even difficulty selection. Lot of nice quality of life that does not make the game to easy or braindead. NEGATIVES: For a game with a decently intricate 2D world and exploration, is a big mistake the fact that there is no real map. The enemies are way to easy to avoid and they all drop the same things, there is also no bestiary or anything of the sort, so what happens is that you end up fighting only when you want to grind, except for bosses, it's not the game that chooses when you fight, it is you, and I would prefer it that was not the case.

An absolute insult to the intelligence of players, even on hard mode, even without using the overpowered autobattle, the game just does not allow any type of challenge, the ""quality of life"" is so exagerated that you do not have to make any strategy or decisions, the game will play itself. Also the story is pretty boring but that is not the fault of the remake.

While it has some considerable problems in it's lack of functional movement, some level design is made without no fairness to the player, and the story is pretty meh, the quality of the gunplay, variety of firearms, and overall enjoyment of the game makes it the best fps ever made for a pre-switch handheld.

this game control like absolute ass, it was made more like a tech demo to show everything the PS Vita could do but that means it is full of touch controls forced gimmicks, very annoying

fantasticly likeable and well written characters thrown away at less than mid story

boring boring boring boring boring boring boring boring boring boring boring boring

literally just made the original game worst, so many little but horrible changes, play the original, it is more impactful

to easy since the healing power is being overpowered, the exploration is a bit confusing, I got lost and didn't have the interest to find out how to find the way, mediocre game

The art is good enough, I cannot think of anything else of positive about this game, the writing is so boring, filled with the protagonist mental **** about every single thing, it feels like it was written by someone depressed overthinking everything, the story is also full of things that break the suspension of disbelief, as a final note, the game doesn't have anything of japanese, not the characters, not the culture, the attitude, nothing, the setting of Japan is so random, I also do not like the self insert of a russian protagonist since the creators are russians, you chose the japanese setting then commit to it.

I'm tempted to put a 6/10 review just because this already easy game had it's difficulty nerfed to oblivion, instead of giving us an easy mode they forced the nerfs for all players because a few complained. But overall the game is good, especialy the art, also I liked the movement and the arial combat.

Repetitive to nausea, horribly written, generic and super super short side quests, particularly woke designs and characters which are also caricatures without any depth (there is not a singular woman that looks or dress like a woman, they are all girlboss warriors, this is beyond historical inacuracies, that is laughably cringe, but I guess having any femmininity is not progressive enough for them or something). The game is also literally offensive towards both scandinavians and brits for how horribly they rappresented their history and culture, I cannot think of a historical game less acurate than this, almost everything is wrong and based upon steretypes created by Vikings and other tv shows. The progression is pretty bad, I never changed armour my whole game, maybe also because I got the deluxe edition armor from the start, but still it is ridicolous to ruin your own game balancing for something like that (I bought the deluxe just to have the DLC). England was already the setting for Syndicate, I would have wished to see more of Scandinavia, but in this game they could not afford to have a singular original idea so they copied Vikings even here; also early medieval England has 0 charm, they lack the wood culture rappresentation and instead they use generic bricks for everything, they lack the was farmed fields and the dark scary forests that kids in middle ages heard stories about, even the Valhalla is shallow with the most un-epic generic rappresentation, this game is truly SOUL LESS. Only good thing is the combat system, it is fun but it is also so easy that the stealth becomes useless (I played at max difficulty).

one of the best 2D platformer I ever played, still limited in it's scope and potential, an 8.3 for me

The difference in difficulty between the 6 main worlds and the extra seventh world is so exagerated it is laughable, we pass from challenging but still very doable even first try, to **** rage game difficulty, and I would have been fine with it if it wasn't that for 100% the game you need to do the whole seventh world within 4 lives, yeah that is borderline impossible, that made me lose interess into collecting the other things to achive 100%, also the game is weirdly short, you can finish it in barely a few hours and half of those hours are for world 7.

This is supposed to be a great story? The first door was a nice story, good characters with a terrible no sense ending, but the problem is that from that point on the story decides to change it's characters every once in a while, they are bassically different tales narrated by the same person, and the other characters and stories are pretty bad in my opinion, I have not even finished the game, after many hours I was done. Also there is basically no choice to be made.

the controls are better than the original Wii version but everything else is worse, it was done so cheaply, for example the lives system is beyond broken, making 100%ing the game an absolute nightmare

The game of Kyle Thompson that I liked the least, it might just be that I do not like isometric games while I love the 2D sidescrolling metroidvanias, but I'm not sure it's that, I mean I did enjoy Zelda and Tunic.

**** remake that make almost everything worse, the worst crime is how awful the new music is compared to the original, it was made by corporate greed, assigning a unnecessary remaster/remakes at cheap studios who know nothing about the source material instead of making the original creators work at it.

how can you take the original game and make technicaly worst is beyond me, this game crashes all the time, if you do not have a nasa pc prepare for atrocious frame drops, loading screens longer than Sonic 06, and somehow it's buggier that the original, so many missions brocked from bugs, bosses that spawn doubled, dialogues and character interactions are so often broken, they didn't even implement the fan made patches that fixed most bugs, great work artistically but this game is unacceptable in the current technical state it is in, if you want to play a good looking Oblivion, play Skyblivion instead (it's a remake not a mod)

Ruining the narrative of the game for appease some ethno nationalist is crazy, censorship is never ok, and that change even ruined the gameplay, there is a whole chapter in which enemies do not attack you anymore, also the game should be made more fair, not more easy, mines and early game enemies are now basically harmless, is it that hard to put a difficulty selector for the casuals so that we do not have to all suffer from this?

The combat, while ripetitive, is good... that is it, there is nothing else interesting or fun about this game, just hours of useless dialogues and going back and forth from 3 locations, nothing is necessarily badly made, it's just a waste of time. Also the game is full of social leftism modern politics, that have 0 relevancy with the story, there is a whole argument about "immigrants are good", racism is often a topic, with of course the shallow caricature of "white racist man bad", there are lectures about sexism (which is the only one that is credible for the time period), and of course the cast has the ethnic demography of NY while being set in Victorian England, which was more than 99% native english; if you really want politics in your game, put them in an interesting way, cause like this it just feels like propaganda.

Adding 100 things does not make the game good, it just makes an unfocused mess, they should refine what they got instead of putting everything together and seeing what sticks, this does not feel like a product ready to be sold, thankfully Shadow Generations, which is based upon Frontiers, showed that they lerned a lot from this lesson.

worst stage gimmicks ever, they are all so slow, it barely feel like a Sonic game at all, so incredibly unfun

The game tries to be a metroidvania in the worst possible way, you are just making errands, it literally gives you a new ability to pass a section you couldn't before and tells you exacly were you need to return to progress, but everything you find there is another of those passage unlocker, and so you need to return where you have just been. The game makes you do this constantly, go from point A to point B, not return to point A, now go to point C, now go to point B again, it is unsufferable. The pet progression is stupid, why would form evolutions not carry the leveling, this way every time you unlock a form you actualy make you pet weaker. Only thing that saves itself is the story idea of vibe, I like the idea of a monster world conquered by 5 bratty kids and you needing to save it.

Great collection, built with a encyclopedia for each game, save states, and other usefull options, it was made with care, unfortunatly the 3 main games get worst at each entry (at least for me). It's by far the best way to play those games.

I'm making up for my lack experience in the Castlevania series, playing all of the igavanias, and I have to say Aria of Sorrow might be the weakest for me, I know that is unpopular but my experience with it was not good: 1- exploration gives you very little, there is basically no power ups, just potions scattered and a few equipables who 90% are bad, and so many times there are rooms that lead to nothing but a single cash of money or a heart (stuff you can find everywhere all the time) that does not improve your character. 2-the is not way you find out how to achive the true ending by yourself, for that you have to pass tru a waterfall which has the least intuitive way to pass it possible; you also have to do a lot of other stuff that it can be understood without a guide, but you will need a bit of trial and error. 3- combat is ok, the game has a part in which it is very difficult but for the wrong reasons; the spaces in the rooms are narrow and the enemies/attacks are big, dodging everything feels more like a trail and error thing rather than skills. But the game gets much easier near the endgame, which is a bit **** thing and a bit of a bad thing; I first tried both final boss and true final boss. The game for me is a 6.5

The game is way to easy, I did not had to put any effort; the game sound bad, looks okay and plays okay. It tried so badly to be a portable version of Symphony of the night but it misses all of the complexity of the mechanics of that game. It's still enjoyable but it's probably the worst igavania.

It's incredible how good it is, especialy for being of '97. Some secrets are a bit to cryptic, there is some stuff that would need an explanation, and the inventory gets way to full making the utilization of singular consumables not handy at all. That being said, the progression is fantastic, the level design is great, the art design also is, the combat is simple but satisfying; the game as one of the smartest ways to increasing the gametime with the inverted castle; it's just great overall.

mediocre game, I was constantly in the borderline of boredom, and when the game soft locked me because of a bug after a long stage I said "hell no I'm not playing this again", and I haven't touched it since, I think I played around 70% of the game

I got a crush for Slavya and Alisa, the music and the atmosphere, but the writing was trash, random stuff with no sense, every route explain the supernatural phenomenon differently, the full arts are inconsistant, some are good some have terrible style, this game seems written and drawn by 5 different people who never talked to each other. That being said there were a few sequences that unironically touched me, and this game made me into russian culture.

boring, very boring, even a lover for 2D side scrollers (metroidvanias or not), the level design and the controls are just mediocre

There is a limit to how minimalistic a game can be; this game is beyond that, not even NES games were this minimal.

It is soooo boring, I played so many metroidvanias and this was the most boring.

Il gioco non ha difetti gravi, semplicemente è noioso, level design troppo banale, è anche troppo povero, nelle animazioni, musiche, design, sembra tutto fatto con 2 euro e senza grande talento. Amo i metroidvania, li ho giocati quasi tutti, questo non è tra quelli che consiglio.

Questo gioco ha un problema: dura più di 5 ore. Sembra un pregio ma non lo è con questo sistema di combattimento, un combattimento molto divertente le prime volte ma che appena ti abitui diventa un ripetere esattamente la stessa **** di pulsanti ogni volta, non c'è nessuna strategia necessaria se non quella che capisci dopo qualche ora, tanto tutti i nemici si battono nello stesso modo, si finisce per cadere nel botton smashing, di giochi ripetitivi ne ho giocati ma mai uno che riuscisse a diventare da così divertente a così insopportabile. Ed è un peccato perché è uno dei combat system più originali che io abbia mai visto, un mix tra combattimento a turni ed in tempo reale, ma forse non lo ha fatto nessuno prima proprio perché stanca velocemente, o forse è colpa loro che non hanno messo nuove meccaniche ed elementi interessanti al progredire del gioco. Poi come mappa metroidvania è pessima, piena di punti che sembrano segreti che non hanno nulla dentro, al massimo un npc che ti dice cose senza valore tipo quelli di pokemon. C'è soltanto un singolo tipo di oggetto che puoi trovare esplorando la mappa, delle pietrine che se ne trovi 10 o 20 ti permettono di aumentare il tuo attacco o difesa, a tua scelta, niente di più noioso e **** platforming è decente e si evolve spesso con nuove abilità di movimenti ma anche quello è molto statico, andrebbe benissimo se non fosse così abusato nella mappa, insomma non è divertente neanche **** trama io non la ho finita, ci sono arrivato vicino ma mi ero rotto troppo le scatole, non era niente di che, solita storia della prescelta e del male risvegliato che va sconfitto, comunque i **** sono simpatici ma alla lunga stancano anche loro, protagonista **** musica è accettabile ma con poca varietà.L'art design è buono, soprattutto quello dei ****. Insomma ottima idea, pessima esecuzione, da evitare.

a metroidvania without a map, this makes the game wrost in it's essence, also it doesn'thelp that the combat is so parametric, you are gonna win by choosing the right build, not by fighting with skill; that being said the game is excellent in lots of things, so even if I dropped it for the flaws I listed, I recognize it's merits

what a dissapointment, this game is bad, not mediocre, bad, in everything expect for the hidden mouses, I liked those

an empty game, there is still some some fun in it, I cannot recomend it to no one tho, literally no one

mediocre, in everything, there are so many better metroidvanias, play those instead

It's ok, nothing incredible, but it's terrible as a metroidvania; I valued it as a platformer to be kind.

it's the same game as the first, I didn't really like that one so I didn't like much this one

I swear I cannot understand what I dislike about this game, I love metroidvanias, I just don't find this one fun, in nothing really.

I didn't like the Emmis, I didn't like the weird fast travel, I didn't like the exploration, I didn't like much the platforming; I really liked the combat tho.

The consumable ruin the combat, they are unlimited, it is basically impossible to die late game. The level design is to often generic, not nearly good enough, same thing for the exploration, not rewarding at all, you can only find squid hearts (which are usefull) and gold that is only usefull at the start. The magic dances don't work that well as a mechanic, you want to spam them to see if there are hidden treasures but it cost mana, and you want to keep that mana to cure and interact with things. That being said, Shantae is still full of it's charm, the art, the funny and lovable writing, the good hit feedback during combat; also platoforming is not bad, maybe not great but neither bad at all. Maybe playing on extrahard mode, that you unlock at the end, is a better experience overall.

Game is to generic in: art design, music, combat, animations and area design, it feels very cheap. The game is so slow for such a big part of the game, you move so slowly. Only uniquely good thing is the platforming, it gets complex and skilled, and there are some incredibly challenging platform trails (optionals), but they feel to detached from the game and the world, they are basically there just to apease lovers of ultra-hard platforming. Nothing in the game is outright bad but there is just to much better out there.

Problematic game, my vote is more like 6.5 I know it was a different time, but wtf were they thinking making some roadblocks were you can only progress from one boss/encounter, the boss is not only very hard, band they made the save point very far from it, making it very frustrating. Also the game is terrible to 100% since the map is big and gives 0% info of where in the areas you have found everything and were not, so you would need to search everywhere constantly. That being said the game has good level design and while the exploration is artificialy limited, it's still satisfying to find power ups.

PROS -funny and interesting writing and twists -good level design -good bosses -good style and music FLAWS -the game wants to be a metroidvania when it's level design is predominately linear, yes it opens up later but not flawlessly -backtracking can be a pain in such linear areas -ending does not live up the hype -first half of the game is the best one, it does get more boring -DLC is also boring