Master Key

I want to like this game with it's cute aesthetic but the level design is severely lacking. I just finished the first dungeon and there are a looooot of annoying quirks in there, the biggest "wtf were they thinking" moment was while entering a room from the south and you need to hookshot (spoilers) your way through the room, from post to post. There is a timing puzzle in there as well, where spikes are slowly rotating around the room so you need to wait for a cycle to do the puzzle... And then finally, there's just one water-bound zora in the room that pops up and shoots pellets at you. Here's the problem: You have literally nowhere to move or hide, and the room cycles while off screen so you may enter the room and need to wait 3-7 seconds for the spikes to rotate away from you... and if the zora just happens to be in line of sight of you well guess what? You're getting shot, and then THAT shot is probably sending you back to the last screen because it knocked you back a bit. This is one of many "for the love of god, dev, WHY?" moments for me just leading up to the first dungeon boss... extremely annoying. While on the depressing topic of dogwater level design, I enter the boss room and it's a mole, the game gives a mini cutscene where you stand directly in front of the boss without moving, and then the boss throws two shots in a spread pattern - missing you entirely. Me, thinking, okay chief I got the memo, and when the mole pops up next I stand still so the mole can miss me with it's spread shot... except the bastard mole does the exact same attack animation... before throwing one single shot directly in to me. The feeling of betrayal is immense, and my faith in the dev has plummeted, don't do this kind of blatantly obvious demonstration of a boss pattern when it doesn't even matter. My time played is very misleading btw, due to a lot of afk time, it'll say something like 7 hours at time of review but this is more like 2 hours of play, and that play was very meandering because I had fun exploring the first town and smacking all the walls I could think to smack. tl;dr - charming game that baited my love for a sense of discovery and squashed my fun with many, back to back, consistly bad level design choices. I'll say more if I decide to come and play some more, which is likely. If you want games with a sense of discovery then play Ooo or Tunic or La-Mulana 2 or Outer Wilds, you're welcome.

I really enjoyed it. It is a zelda like game, with a very fun visual style and a lot of secrets to find!

This game is definitely not a joy to play on a big screen. In this case smaller is better, and would probably give a much better experience on a steamdeck or similar. I get the 2 color artstyle, but I really didn't like it no matter what colorpalette I tried. There were too little detail for it to be enjoyable. I also had a huge issue with the fact that you get stunned for a long while when getting hit. Will not give this game a negative review as it's good for what it tries to be, although it wasn't for me at all

Very good zelda like. Reminds me of the original links awakening or the oracles. 100% recomend

[h1]Several obvious flaws knock this game down.[/h1] Master Key has a concept so simple, you'd think it'd execute on it flawlessly. A simple Zeld' em' up with a very low amount of colors. (Two.) But due to some serious flaws, the flow of the game frequently halts. [hr][/hr] [list] [*]Minor Foible: The game defaults to release to swing instead of press to swing, I have no idea why the designer felt the need to go against 40+ years of game design. Platform characters did not jump when you released the button, so why reverse this? [*]You have knockback. Your opponents do not, except when required of their design. This is design that dates back to Hydlide, and was quickly remedied by games which followed. [*]You have multiple kinds of hitstun: Impact, hit, and respawn. Each of these locks you in a state which leaves you unable to react for [i]LONG ENOUGH.[/i] [*]World navigation is stretched and complicated for no discernible reason; if it was a text adventure, every grid square of every screen would have to be navigated manually. [*]Secrets are hidden and frequent, yet non-indicative. Where's the secret passage? Either guess or swing at all the walls. Could we not be spared even 8 pixels for a crack or other "off" indicator? [*]The world is aimless and your objective is vague at best in most instances. Sure, you're collecting the keys, but what for? [*]On the default difficulty setting, your key hits like an actual key, which in addition to the lack of knockback your opponents have (and your weapon's paltry range), means you're often getting boxed in and thus, exploding. [*]Discerning between surfaces is not easy due to a lack of contrast between them; meaning frequent trips into the drink may occur. This is annoying in the early game, while water remains a gated damaging obstacle. [*]Once you obtain the power of speed, you'll find very little incentive to actually use it, because it isn't actually that much faster, is useless around opponents, and (with speed active) your character turns with the fluid grace of a 1970s car, including a baffling windup and stop. [*]Most of the optional puzzles, and many progression puzzles unfortunately require you to know what color shirt the developer was wearing; solutions which require you to intuit exactly what the designer was thinking at the moment. [/list] There are [i]some[/i] positives. The chiptune music does the job quite well, communicating without words is laudable, and the fox is cute enough. Those do not make up for the problems this game has.

If you enjoy old-school Zelda dungeoneering, this is definitely worth checking out. I enjoyed this one. I got stuck behind a few tricky fights at times because I was stubborn and refused to turn down the difficulty, but I have no regrets.

Exploration and discovery in this game is very good. The dev did a lot with the art with only 2 colors. The game can be a bit plodding when you don't know where you're going, but overall it is very fun. The performance in the snowfall area could be improved.