Angel Essence

Pretty solid and short platformer metroidvania. goes without saying its extremely similar to Psuedoregalia, which is a strength if you liked that game. i personally enjoyed the whole thing, and think its wroth its price. if you like simple and low poly type games then this'll be your cup of tea. Its not the most expansive in terms of content, but it clearly has good effort and map design knowledge put into it. the platforming challenges tend to be linear but flexible, while there are clearly intended ways of doing things, you can kinda freestyle everywhere and in some cases skip large parts of the map with enough skill. if that's your jam then you'll have fun throughout the game. The controls are a bit mixed. They're straightforward yes, but at some point you have so many movement options, all put into different inputs, that it can become difficult to manage. if you struggle with complex controls you might find it challenging, if not you'll probably be fine, and will eventually get used to it. its rare that a platforming section requires insanely precise timing or maximum use of all your movement options (outside of skips and tricks.) The game gives you alot of opportunities to recover from mistakes, and "dying" isn't really punished outside of time loss. its challenging enough to be fun while not being insanely punishing and precise. The combat...exists. similar to psuedoregalia the combat isn't really the focus of the game, your combat problems (if you have any) are solved pretty quickly. and you aren't meaningfully punished for getting hit. it's just kinda used to fill space with an obstacle, which is fine. It doesn't have to be super in depth, and it gets the job done. but if you're looking for complex or in depth combat then you might be disappointed. personally, I think that the animations could use more polish in general, its a small thing to care about, but many actions tend to feel pretty stiff and slow. they're not "unresponsive" per say, but they could feel more snappier and expressive. art is cute, gameplay is solid, music is nostalgic, game is worth playing.

Do you like platformers? Yes? Do you like Psuedoregalia? Yes? Do you like going "I hit that button I swear!"? Yes? Then buy this game so you can go swhoo Whoop wooshh nnnnnnyyyommm. A good one trust.

The personal calendar section of steam is a blessing for showing me this game i had never heard of beforehand. If you enjoy short indie platformers, especially of the likes of Pseudoregalia, you'll fall in love with this game as well. I havent gone fully through it yet, but I already enjoy the freeform parkour quite a lot. For the low price it is i reccomend it to anyone, i would've paid double the price with proper marketing, but this pricing makes it very affordable and accessible to many.

A solid platformer-based metroidvania. As much as I hate comparing works, mentioning Pseudoregalia is practically innevitable when talking about this game, as they have many similarities. In other words, if you like Pseudoregalia, you (probably) will like Angel Essence, and if you didn't, you (probably) won't like this game either. The complete moveset is very satisfying to use but one issue I did struggle with is the complexity of the controls, which feel cluttered on a controller due to there being many different actions, and some actions are done automatically, such as the wallrun if you hold the run button, which has caused a great deal of my falls throughout the latter half of the game. With enough experience though, you will eventually get used to the controls and by the end of the game, you should be able to handle any obstacle quite easily. I love the visuals of this game, obviously very inspired by the 5th generation of consoles, most especially the Nintendo 64 here. There is a certain sense of scale when taking the time to look around which feels almost unsettling due to the emptiness of the space, which is very welcome in my opinion.

Bit of an intro, but there will be a TLDR at the end: Just finished the story and 100% collectables (the community have found so far). Want to write this up while it's fresh in my head. I have well over 300 hours in Pseudoregalia (speedrun, casual, and randomizer), a $6 retro platforming metroidvania. I have been spoiled by the absolute GOAT (pun intended) of this genre, however it is the most comparable game to Angel Essence that I have played. As such, that is what I will be comparing it to. [h1]Review[/h1] Controls are a bit clunky on Keyboard/Mouse, I didn't use controller. The "Alternate Function" mechanic was actually very enjoyable, even though it took some getting used to. Muscle memory started kicking in after a while, but i swear it felt like it was dropping inputs on the gravity orbs at times. Unfortunately the controls have yet to hit the "flow" state like in Pseudo, but are definitely still serviceable. Just a word going forward, I would recommend against defaulting mouse Y-Axis to inverted. Level design is somewhat basic/linear, doesn't leave room for open progression routes like Pseudo. Main hub area that you can pause-warp to, and 5 distinct areas that are self contained. Each area feels pretty linear except one, and there's not really any puzzles to speak of (aside from 1 side quest, but it's more of a "find the code and where to input it"). Game progression is "linear". I found a movement tech that left me PNR'd (Point of No Return) a few times before i realized i was going the entirely wrong way and missed an ability a while back. As a casual speed runner, this leaves some thoughts for routing, but that's for a future time. Graphics are as advertised, so runs super smooth on low powered machines (mine is absolute overkill for this). There's a charm to be had with the retro low-poly graphics that I enjoy. Reminds me of the beginning of the Dreamcast Era. Combat is super basic, shoot the thing until it dies. It drops "Essence" (Dark Souls Souls equivalent). No player health bar, taking hits hurts your Essence. I never got anywhere close to running out, so no idea what happens when you die. Platforming is a bit tricky with the controls, but super forgiving on fails. Checkpoints are your last good stable ground, and there is literally 0 penalty for voiding out. I had a few moments with the aforementioned "dropped inputs", but certain areas felt challenging enough but were restrictive with a definite intended route. Side quest/Lore is... there, most of it comes from talking to your assistant "Maple" in the hub area. You can find out of the way items to unlock altered abilities, including some that make back tracking for more items possible. There are also 4 "Gifts" you can find to give Maple for some well placed romance vibes. [spoiler]Final Boss is basically 3-4 platforming challenges in a row, then shoot him in the face until he dies.[/spoiler] Soundtrack is actually fantastic in this one. There's a couple tracks that just absolutely [h2]RIP[/h2] for no particular reason. Very much looking forward to if the developer released the soundtrack as a standalone for a few dollars. Will probably pick it up. [h2]Overall[/h2] Worth the purchase: Resounding [h2]Yes[/h2] Game cost: $5 Rating at price point: 8/10 (Controls hurt it too much, but they work after a while. Just never got to the "flow" state) Comparable game to rate against; Pseudoregalia (which is a 10/10 for $6) As a side note, I get the feeling that this could make a decent randomizer, but I have no coding skills so we'll have to wait and see what the community does. (If someone is inspired by reading this, Archipelago support plz :3) [h1]TLDR;[/h1] Angel Essence is good for a $5 game to kill 3-6 hours. Pick it up if you're interested, but in all honesty it falls a touch short of incredible. It's still very good and enjoyable, but controls are kind of jank on Keyboard/Mouse, I have not played with controller at time of review. Linear progression, fantastic soundtrack, retro graphics style, basic combat, charming atmosphere.

some ASTOUNDINGLY good jump action gaming with great ability progression and complexity that somehow never butchers the level design!!! I rly felt my fingers STRETCH across my entire controller in like a wicked fun way trying to keep track of all the gnarly moves!!! It's all well and KILLER a time BUT!!!!!!!! The lack of some real juicy VISUAL POLISH and FANFARE to the events of things KIND OF hold it back a little from going OVER THE EDGE into being one of the real alltimer "scrimblo" games... like how your lead character jumps around with all the weak charisma of the STIFFS from the likes of CASTLEVANIA 64. or how the animation for your quick plummet/ground pound style action seemingly looks identical to your regular falling pose with only some weak blue afterimages to differentiate it. OR how the visual cue for you using the 'modifier' action that alters how certain platforms let you bounce off of them is just a tiny star icon that gets slapped onto the screen. stuff like that needs some work!! be made...MORE! ya know?? MORE satisfying!! MORE noticeable!!!!! the little star icon modifier thing should TOTALLY have the bubble platforms you're altering change their ENTIRE SHAPE in the world as well or something. not just be a little dent on your HUD!! stuff like that!!! my POWERS should FEEL powerful!!!!!!!!! KILLER GAME ANYWAY but hoh man - if it were made just a tad bit juicer?? MAN o MAN we would have something wild. "Move over, Pseudoregalia..." level wild!!!!!!! OH and *obviously* - it absoLUTELY goes without saying - but the 'COMBAT' - the 'holding the shoot button at the brainless goomba style enemies' ""GAMEPLAY"" kind of totally SUCKED and i rolled my eyes BIGTIME everytime I was made to do it!!! SHOUTOUTS to the final boss and its PLATFORMING ARENA making it miiiildly more interesting, but with your basically infinite health and retries, it still wasn't very dramatic or great a time!!! owell!!!!!!!! at least the platformer game actually ENDED on some platforming here; unlike some others I've seen out there!! Respect!!!!!!!! still a killer game!!!!!!!!!!!!! the shooting always only ever went on for like 20 seconds at a time anyway and the platforming OBVIOUSLY shined through and was worth any of the blemishes but yea~ and for 5 dollars????? I am STEALING from you people!!!!!!!!!

this game isn't Psuedoregalia if that's what you're looking for IMO might be just my opinion but your character moves like they're on ice and your character feels too floaty for my taste. several times where i feel like i overshoot my jumps, or don't jump far enough. the wall kick seems kind of iffy. pseudoregalia, when I do a wall kick, I have a good idea of where i'll bounce off to. in this game, feels like when I kick, it's almost a gamble. not like fly off random, but like, the expected angle I feel like I should bounce off of doesn't apply. you can sort of see it in the gameplay trailer where the character does their flying kick(the white one), it almost felt like they almost overshoot some of their jumps. backflipping, you only get one, but it's easy to screw up. combat feels almost unnecessary. beginning you can only shoot and it does pitiful damage. you can get an upgrade to make it so your kick does damage, but it's really nothing worth talking about. you lose currency, but you have no health so you can't die. speaking of dying, the act of dying feels punishing. i'm not talking about actually dying, i'm talking about, you miss your jump, and you have to spend several seconds falling before respawning. there's an option to fast fall to speed it up, but it really gets annoying. I don't know. there's been patches coming out and the dev has been responding in discussion. the price tag isn't huge, but I feel like if you played Pseudoregalia, this won't feel as good. not a terrible game by any means, just not as good compared to other titles.