Before I Go

Before i go is hands down the best MV i've played this year and it might stay that way for a while (or untill i get to finally find time for MIO, but i digress). The reason i enjoyed this game so much is that it's one of the exceedingly rare mv's that puts a focus on platforming and does it well. Most if not all MV's have very basic platforming with annoyingly difficult combat which gets really exhausting after the 20th soulsvania. So it's nice to finally play an MV where combat is an accessory that only poses a moderate challenge. The real difficulty is found in the platforming which initially made me afraid to comit to purchasing this game. But once i started playing i quickly realized that there's no pixel perfect precision platforming required. It does ramp over the course of the game and gets pretty hard by the end but it's far from impossible. I rose up the challenge and felt cathartic when i beat that final biome gauntlet. This is only possible if you have tight controls which before i go definately has. The controls are incredibly responsive, which is super important in any mv but especially platforming centric ones. The movement mechanics are just the classics, wall climb, air dash and double jump (sort off) but they're pulled off perfectly. Level design plays a vital role here with platforming that has clearly been playtested to perfection, with every jump being made in a way that you can just barely make it. You gotta trust in the level design and use your gut feeling to navigate some sections. There's a lot of timed hazards that you just gotta keep going and never slow down. It feels incredibly exciting to clear sections like these and the game has plenty of them. In fact the level design is among the best of the genre across the board. Not only is each room unique with little repetition in terms of platforming, the map is also very nonlinear and interconnected. The map is filled with lots of big loops that end with unlockable shortcuts to ease backtracking paired with fast travel you unlock pretty early. Also it's suprisingly big and filled with things to find, from health and mana upgrades, to currency, charms and optional collectibles that grant you the true ending. A post launch update was even added just recently to make this easier to track per biome, a huge QoL win! These upgrades really help, especially the health ones as it allows you essentially more tries in the harder platforming gauntlets. If there's one thing i would like to see added to the game though it's some accesibility options for health regen. While the challenge was exhilirating and definately worth persevering through for those who can. I think adding a simple solution like this could allow people as many retries per difficult section as they want. The system in place in the game currently uses a finite resource named red crystals to make a temporary respawn point that fades if you reach a hard checkpoint which makes it feel stressful to spend resources on these but at times necesary due to long stretches of challenging platforming. I always hold onto these red crystals just in case i could need them more later on, although i did start using them later in the game. You can also use these to gain a temporary bonus to dmg or health that lasts untill you die which also isn't particularly satisfying. This red currency is the only real flaw this game has but atleast it helped a bit, especially with the temporary checkpoints. The health and dmg upgrades weren't as vital since combat wasn't too difficult. Most enemies can easily be safespotted and bosses weren't too hard either, although the final one took me a few retries. Combat is not the focus here but the enemies that were there were fun to fight and so were the bosses. It's just that the game has ranged combat which is never as exciting as melee combat in an MV for me personally. There were only 6 bosses and the enemy variety wasn't the greatest but each enemy and boss felt distinct and unique at least both visually and in terms of mechanics with great readability. What also felt unique were the visuals, with beautiful surreal 2.5D landscapes that spoke to the imagination. There's a handfull of biomes that all feel distinct from eachother but within biomes themselves things start to blur together a bit as they are quite expansive with little setpiece locations. It's still beautiful though and the handfull of setpiece locations felt memorable and awe inspiring. The music was enjoyable but there's very little songs for this rather lenghty game so while good it did start to feel a bit repetitive. However the fact that this is a solo dev project excuses this fact, and makes all the the other aspects even more noteworthy. Even the technicalities like framerate and bugs are well done with no complaints on either front from me, with no crashes either. Finally there's the story which felt okay but feels like an afterthought. It tries to be vague but in the end doesn't really leave you with anything despite touching on some heavy topics.