I’ve played for 40 hours, so I think I have the right to talk about some aspects of the game (without spoilers, of course). I don’t claim to be an expert, just someone who has played the game once and reached the easiest ending:

1. Controls. They’re neither good nor bad. I call this type of control “emulator controls.” Movement is controlled with the arrow keys, and action buttons (such as jump, attack, dash, etc.) are assigned to the A, S, D, Z, X, and C keys. Personally, I found it inconvenient that the attack button is to the right of the jump button, but this can be changed (although then even the controls in the menu change, i.e., they are the same as the jump controls in the game). I think the game is easier to control with a gamepad, but I haven’t tried it myself (in any case, Metroidvania games (like Metroid itself) were originally created for consoles).

2. The size of the world. It’s not just big. It’s huge. Grotesquely huge. I can’t measure it accurately. Over time, you gain certain abilities that speed up your movement, but that doesn’t completely save you. If we talk about the exact size of the world, it’s about 70 floors high. If we talk in terms of screens (and I always use non-game screens as an example, considering a “screen” to be the space that the game displays at a time), then it’s clearly 70+ in height and 4 times longer.

3. Saving and fast travel system. The game saves constantly, but there are still places where you can save manually. These are benches, and they are needed so that the hero, sitting on them, can restore their health as much as possible, as well as use them as a respawn point. And here there is a certain complication. When the hero dies, he does not respawn at the nearest bench. He respawns at the bench where he last sat. That is, if we imagine that the player sat on a bench in the easternmost part of the map, then reached the westernmost part, where he did not manage to run to the bench and was killed, then he will respawn at the very beginning of his journey. The fast travel system brightens up the situation a little. Each location has something like a train station, which can be activated for a certain fee. Travel between stations is free. The nuance is that stations are often located far away from points of interest, and you still need to run some distance from them. Plus, at some stages, the character doesn’t have much money, and there may not be enough funds to open a station.

4. Bosses. There are three types of bosses. Mandatory bosses, which must be killed in order to proceed to another location and, consequently, to reach the ending. Semi-mandatory bosses, which do not need to be killed for the simplest ending, but must be killed for the others (they stand in the way of key items for those endings).Optional bosses, which you don’t really have to kill (unless you’re going for 100% or 112% completion). The only exception is one boss in this category, from which you can get a skill. In general, all bosses that drop skills are mandatory, except for this one. Since the skill of this particular boss is only needed three times on the map, and there are workarounds (the game world is semi-open), the absence of his skill does not cause any difficulties.

5. Map and navigation system. This is quite an interesting feature, as it was the first time I had seen this type of system. Initially, the player does not have a map at each new location. You first need to find a character called a cartographer somewhere in the location who is willing to sell you a map. It is important to note that if you somehow let the cartographer leave the location (for example, you went to another location and met him there), only a business card with advice to visit his shop in the hub location will remain at his previous location. But let’s imagine that the map has been purchased after all. Opening it does not make things any clearer. First, it does not show the player’s location. Second, the map is basically unfinished. The cartographer decided not to venture into some dangerous areas of the location, so it’s up to the player to fill in the map. To solve these issues, the cartographer’s shop (in the hub location) sells various cool items. For example, the Pen, which allows the player to fill in the map of the location where the cartographer was unable to do so. This mechanic works as follows: if the player has been to a location that is empty on the map, then the next time they visit a bench (a safe place), the character will automatically draw in the part of the location that they saw. Displaying the player’s location on the location map is more complicated, and to explain this mechanic, it is necessary to describe the next item on the list.

6. Charms. Charms serve as equipment and can simplify gameplay. Each charm occupies a certain number of slots, usually two or more (the compass charm, which is useless in battle, occupies only one slot). Slots can either be obtained for completing certain tasks in the world or purchased. However, in the latter case, they may simply not be sold to you because the seller wants you to get more charms for your collection. Charms can only be put on and taken off on benches.