frogmood

Cathedral is a decent metroidvania with some small, but not insignificant problems. The majority of the game is pretty fun - it has nice movement, the combat isn't bad, and the exploration is just what you'd expect from the genre. Where the game falls down primarily, for me, is it's boss design. Most of the bosses are just way too aggressive and, and give you very little opportunity to deal damage back, or in some cases, to even avoid being hit. I had to resort to buying a health boost to even have a chance of making it through a few of them. And look - I know bosses are supposed to be harder than the rest of the enemies, and I actually enjoy a good soulslike - when I'm playing one. But when I'm playing a metroidvania that suddenly becomes a souls like for 3 minutes out of nowhere? That I don't enjoy so much. The difficulty spike for the bosses just feels WAY too extreme. It feels jarring, and really takes a lot of the fun out of the experience for me. If you like metroidvania and enjoy a good challenge, you'll probably like Cathedral. But if you don't want to have to fight a boss 20 times before you can progress, save yourself the frustration and give this one a miss.