Played a few hours of
It's... functional.
Combat is a bit slow with ennemies having quite a few HP but hit feedback is good, it's has decent platforming segments, very tiny puzzles like bringing an explosive barrel to a wall, a secret here and there, it's quite pretty and the music is good.
But despite unlocking new magic (wooo ice magic I can freeze water blocks, fire and I can light torches) or new weapons (the axe breaks purple blocks and is slower so it staggers more ennemies, yay), it's all very bland and seen a thousand times.
It's a good example of a game made well, but without a soul. It's a bunch of parts stuck together (Donkey Kong Country, a bit of Dark Souls combat stagger, a Mario 3 map system, new paths like in Shovel Knight, etc), all are "good enough" but not particularly fantastic, it still has some issues like long recovery after attacks or underwater moments that are a bit clunky that wouldn't detract too much if it just was... more engaging.
Since it's not an RPG, you can't get XP but just money to buy the few (extremely bland) upgrades, which you get by killing ennemies or breaking down crystals in levels... but everything nets you very little.
While you can just replay a challenge level and get 10 000 in a minute or two, so you quickly just... skip every mob to rush to the end, levels are long... but not when you can just ignore them.
And I ended up dropping it because why bother to see more of the same and not engage much with the content? it's not like there's much of a story or deep boss fights.
Hope that the studio will find a little spark for their future games, they are capable, but the sidescrolling genre is more than crowded.