Positive recommendation only because it's a solid metroidvania in a vacuum, but otherwise, feels like a massive disappointment compared to Lone Fungus 1.
Lone Fungus 1 was clearly a sort of hollow knight clone initially with its weapon swing and upgrades, with its charm system, and getting dropped into a world that was unfamiliar to you. What charmed me about the game was that the movement became extremely interesting and unique compared to other metroidvanias, with a wild momentum vector stacking based system. The optional platforming challenges were extremely interesting because of that. The only wish was that the enemies and bosses used more of the movement. I still heavily recommend that game.
In Lone Fungus: Melody of Spores, the movement is gone. It is now fully just a carbon copy of other metroidvania systems, with very little interesting going for it. Normal dash and dash jump, normal air dash, normal double jump, silksong divekick. That's about it. Nothing evolves about the movement, no unique mechanics, and the platforming challenges feel more timid and more simple.
The story now has a "chosen by the prophecy" kind of narrative, so it's again nothing that's very new, but it feels like it was paced far worse. In Lone Fungus 1, you're clearly told "you need all the spores, then go to the top". You aren't told anything else, and you don't need to, because that will turn into a massive search adventure, and you'll always be feeling closer and closer to your goal. You're never tricked, there is no twist. In 2, the story amounts to "ok this happened, now go here", "ok you went there, now find this", "ok, you found this, now use it there" and so on until you do the last thing and the credits roll. There is no big goal you feel tangibly closer to, you are just doing gopher quests until you're done with the game. And there is no optional choice unlike in 1, there is no alternate route(s) or method(s), it's the same end.
Speaking of quests, and on top of them, equipment and currency and shops, I strongly feel the dev felt this need born out of inadequacy to make a "real game". As if Lone Fungus 1 was lacking, Melody of Spores just tacks on these extremely unnecessary and bloat creating elements that remove the satisfaction of collecting things. You don't find new cool equipment in places, you buy 80% of it, or get it through "quests". You don't get a health upgrade, you get a "level up", and you get a dark souls style level up a chosen stat screen, which does nothing positive for the game and just makes finding things less satisfying and introduces choice paralysis and dissatisfaction. You don't explore by yourself and finish your own quest, you talk to a million boring, unnecessary, shallowly written NPCs that didn't need to be there who tell you what to do and where to go. You don't get tangible upgrades or a couple of very differently feeling equipment options, you get absolutely buried by garbage, by a poorly thought out mess of items where 90% of them will so obviously never be used and 1% are obviously broken and the best option. The dev thought these things were "missing" from lone fungus I guess, that these things make a "real game", but it just made the game feel unfocused and poorly thought out.
On the topic of exploration, that too feels gimped. Again, because the game doesn't have one ultimate goal of gathering *all the things* and instead you jump from one order to another, the game ends up extremely linear. The world is also very poorly interconnected, unlike Lone Fungus 1. It didn't feel satisfying to explore at all any time I thought about what was in the first game. Another thing that didn't help exploration was that levels didn't feel like they had intentional design and identity. Mechanics mishmashed and biomes inconsistent between levels, while in lone fungus 1, every area had a very distinct visual and mechanical identity, especially in later game. Here it just felt like one big mess. Also despite being linear, a huge lack of optional areas, subsections and exploration, unlike in the first game. Lack of hidden hallways, hidden walls, mostly solvable with one NPC that sells you the full map.
Lackluster music too. Not like Lone Fungus 1's strongpoint was music, but it had quite a couple of standout unique tracks whose melodies still get stuck in my head. No such thing here.
The combat is a mixed bag. Some things feel like they are missing compared to 1, but some things feel like a massive improvement. The combat, and big boss design might be the only thing I would say Melody of Spores does better, but not by much, and it's not definite.
I'll finish by saying I still massively support the dev, and I would still say this game is a very high class of quality and satisfying movement and traversal compared to the vast majority of metroidvanias, and deserves to be in the higher classed ones, it's just such a shame that it feels so so so much weaker than its predecessor. I'm still extremely excited for anything new the dev cooks up.
