It was ok. I played on PC and had recurring sound bugs, multiple softlocks due to controller issues (buttons occasionally remapping without any apparent reason with no way to change it), and one hard lock that forced me to restart my whole computer.
Technical issues aside, the game was very easy even on Hard, with ridiculous checkpoints that ensure you rarely respawn more than a few seconds from where you died, and with combat starting out relatively challenging but quickly becoming trivial once you've unlocked a few abilities (even the supposed "challenge" shrines were a joke). The mobility you get as you progress through the game is impressive and it does feel nice to almost fly through the environments in such a quick and fluid way, but when there's so little resistance it's hard to feel engaged.
The environments are pretty and impressively animated, but relatively monotonous for most of the game (forest, caves, more forest with minor differences, more caves with minor differences), although a few areas in the second half of the game stand out as more interesting, both visually and in terms of level design (specifically Luma Pools, Mouldwood Depths and Baur's Reach). Character and creature designs are generally incredibly boring, including the player character (the most important one!). Overall, while the game looks pretty with tons of detail and animation, and clearly a lot of work went into it, I would say that most of it is very lacking in style. There are other side-scrollers with visuals that, despite technically being much less detailed and animated, are far more visually captivating thanks to better use of colour, more striking character designs and animations, better visual "flow" between environments and scenarios etc. The team clearly employs competent and hard-working artists and animators but is in desperate need of better art direction. The music is also well-made, but not too interesting.
It's by no means a bad game, but whether you're looking for a metroidvania or just a great audiovisual experience, I'd say there's much better stuff out there.
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