Swagzagoon

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This game is bad, but it's like a special kind of bad, the kind of bad where you just keep going because you simply have to see how much worse it can get. And the more I played it, the more confused nay ASTONISHED I was to later learn that somehow this game got two more sequels and ports. The best thing I could possibly say about this game is that it WAS finished; but finished as in there were levels that could be beaten in a sequential order by the player, a boss happens, you beat it and then the "story" resolves itself. Completely disregarding all other aspects of a game like actual level design that barely makes any sort of effort to be challenging or expansive, mechanics that actually serve to improve the experience and don't excuse the player moving as slow as molasses at all times, and boss fights that once you figure out the weaknesses aren't stun locked into oblivion (or heck in one case, just walk over them and they can't comprehend the idea to throw projectiles the other direction). The U.I. isn't all that interesting, the story just doesn't exist, the difficulty regardless of settings goes from a low battery on your 3DS being more of a threat to the Zizou fight being some Malenia Elden Ring type nonsense. And above all else, I legitimately feel bad dogging on this game because when I suffered through the muck enough to unlock extras with developers talking about how much they put into the design of the characters and graphics they legit sounded like they were having a good time, and I will give them that the sprite work is pretty good and detailed. But I'm sorry no amount of passion can excuse a game this broken and shabby, especially on the 3DS, a console that had many higher quality games of its kind like Shantae and Azure Striker Gunvolt (which also got a ton of sequels)

(This review was written way after the game released, so some patches might have fixed some of my opinions, but I didn't bother to go back and check so take this with a grain of salt) Overall I found the game to be generally a good time, primarily because the concept of the game was just so insane and they totally delivered on it, a Metroidvania in a weird a** space world with pacman and some other Namco stuff. Its overall a concept they did skip out on and actually expand on it with the whole underground space organization and some of the most absurd plot twists Ive ever seen, and I respect that for being so weird. But don't take that enjoyment on face value, that 7/10 is very generous to say the least. My biggest problem is something that comes up the entire length of the game; the pacing in terms of story and gameplay, how events are ordered and how the levels set themselves up, is absolutely atrocious. The story takes forever to actually explain anything, and only gets going after like two hours, after like four areas and 3 boss fights later, they suddenly drop several exposition dumps when everything goes wrong after the big black tower area (and in a story this weird, some context earlier from time to time is very much needed). Gameplay pacing is also messed up, you get hit with roadblocks over and over again and 90% of time they have items like health increases, which is cruel considering the game does that thing where they make health pickups look optional when in actuality they are very much required because enemies and especially bosses get stronger as the game goes on (almost to two-touch levels in later areas), and this game is especially stingy on both health pickups and save points to get your health back. and by the time you get the double jump (which is pretty much after the halfway point of the game) suddenly the level exploration balloons ten times its size and you will get lost because a lot of things that aren't MAZE sections aren't marked and you have to use map markers which are in limited quantity so you will run out on occasion and you'll have to leave other collectible pickups without a marker (which yeah I know this exploration road-block thing is part of Metroidvanias but when I say it balloons, I mean it MAJORLY balloons, like this is a completely different game at this point with how linear it was before, there's even an entire other optional area only accessible with this double jump I think). Another problem is that there's moments or objectives in the game that either last the entire length of the area, or are so short I question why it was even here. For example: There's this part where you go to a new area that's gimmick is its dark as **** and Puck (your pacman companion) says "it's dark in here, maybe we should go back to that robot from before and see if he has a tool that will let us see" so you drag your keister back, grab the thing, and that's it. Why did we need to backtrack, there were no stakes in looking for it, no new boss, nothing, it was a complete waste of time. There's some other miniscule problems I can list: dots in moments you control puck are actually required for completing an area, ALL of the MAZE sections **** absolute a** if you're going for the big reward (which was NOT worth it I assure you) because the controls are a pain sometimes and you have to be above perfect to actually get it, theres this weird thing where everytime I open the game the menus have a two second delay to pop up and then it never happens again so long as the game is running. But it's mainly the pacing of the game I take issue with, it does sort of have a snowball effect, a very slow one mind you. And once you do get that double jump, the massive exploration does make things a lot more enjoyable since you don't get roadblocks shoved in your face every two seconds. The combat is solid, the skill slot system is pretty alright, its visually appealing very ominous and atmospheric like Hollow Knight, and there is a interesting story and world here (although Puck can be really condescending and annoying in the beginning half). But just know it takes a lot of patience to get to that point where you do enjoy the game (also just go for the essentials in the MAZE sections, can't stress enough how painful it was to go for completion)