kremling_chaos

Imagine if someone took all the best things about bullet hells, top-down Zelda games, and Dark Souls. Archvale is exactly what it looks like, and it's incredibly satisfying. Top notch variety in enemies and zones, fantastic bullet patterns, and so many ways to build your character. The crafting is fun, easy to understand, and extremely rewarding. Multiple difficulties and the ability to grind gold & resources (if you want to) makes it very accessible. You get a bit of the story after defeating each temple - it isn't very long but very it's extremely well done. The soundtrack is cute and very fitting for the pixel art. Extra kudos to this game for the protagonist being gender neutral (they / child / little one / etc). I highly recommend Archvale to anyone who enjoys Wizard of Legend, Nuero Voider, Hammerwatch, Geometry Wars, older Zelda games, etc.

I'm sure the gameplay is fine, but the premise? Incredibly insensitive. Sure, mars is cool and so is alternate history, and we all love bullet hells. But let's not forget that the colonial english massacred countless natives in their "new world". Colonizers are NOT to be made into heroes, and no re-telling of their story should ever paint them in a positive light.

The motion controls are quite terrible, and I don't even mind motion controls (when they're done decently). The mandatory constant high-fiving is super annoying. There are only 4 standard maps and they're all tiny. The other games modes seemed half-finished and lacking. If you're looking to have a fun time with a party game, I'd pass on this one. Save yourself the heartache. Some of the new mini games are fun, but aside from the awful motion controls, there aren't any mechanics we haven't seen in previous mario party games.

Less of a clone and more of a fan-made homage to the Zelda series. The story & characters are so much more charming than the ones in old zelda titles, and the dungeon designs are equally clever and a lot of fun. If you liked A Link to the Past or Link's Awakening, you'll LOVE this one.

Fun dungeon crawling, tight mechanics (aside from occasional bugs), great soundtrack / art / atmosphere, and the shopkeeper mechanics is truly a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be. The world and characters are super charming! If you ever played **** Valley and wished there was more to the mine, this will scratch that oddly specific itch. Would recommend to any fan of dungeon crawlers.

If you like zelda and gauntlet on NES, you'll love this game. The dungeons are crafted with care (not generated), the mechanics are tight and fun, and it's honestly just a great party dungeon crawler. The classes allow for many play styles and the pixel art is top notch! Only thing keeping it from a 10/10 for me is the soundtrack, which is decent but not fantastic.

Back tracking for collectables can be a little annoying later in the game, but it's an absolute steal for $10, and you'll get several hours of retro platforming enjoyment before you even get that far.

If you like both the rogue-lite and bullet-hell genres, you will 11/10 love this game. It's hard to articulate all the great things about it in such a short space, but in short, the art, music, gameplay mechanics, and general attitude of the game really struck a chord with me. I've been playing video games my whole life and just now made a metacritic account to rant about how good this one is specifically... I hope the devs are super proud of themselves :3