It's alright. I wish I could put a mixed review instead of yes or no. I'm putting no because it already has a pretty high rating, so I want to even it out a little.
This game is really in a dire need of better player expression, polish, and slightly tighter controls.
There's really only one way to complete every room - there's not much variation you can do as a player to make the game yours. There's no tricks that are revealed as you play the game that let you zoom through previous sections. It's really just the same thing over and over: You pickup a crystal that lets you use 1 specific ability, and then you use that ability the same way you have hundreds of times before. Repeat for the entire game.
Rooms sort of blend into eachother. I felt surprised multiple times that the level hadn't ended yet - that somehow they were still trying to juice a mechanic that had already been thouroughly squeezed. A lot of these mechanics are just kinda dull, or barely a variation of the previously introduced ones. For instance, level 3 introduces a chili pepper that lets you dash with much more momentum, break destructable objects, and bounce off walls. Is it different than the basic dash? Sure. Does it feel that different? Not really. Or, another example, Level 5 introduces an abilitiy that lets you chain multiple tethers together, effectively extending the reach of your tether. Once again, is it different? Yes! Does it really change the gameplay all the much, introduce complexity, or interact with the other abilities in an interesting way? No.
It's kinda like if in celeste, all of your movement abilities were locked behind crystals. Want to dash? You need a crystal. Want to climb? Collect a crystal first! Oh, you want to walljump? Hahaha, silly, collect the crystal first. There's no freedom for how you want to move throughout a level. The game spoils its own solution by giving you the exact tools it requires to make it through a level. Often times, you will beat a level by just going through the motions. I collect this crystal, I use the ability. I collect this crystal, I use the ability. There's no combo moves, no flow. You can't do something like a wavedash in this game, because jumping and dashing would be seperate moves that require crystals and have to be used one by one, sequentually, with no overlap.
As for the polish, it really needs some in a lot of areas. A lot of rooms can be cheesed by intentionally wasting some of ur ability slots to respawn a crystal when the devs didn't intend, which lets you pick up extra abilities and easily skip over areas. This is in way way way way way more rooms than you would imagine, and I intentionally stopped doing it to make the game more fun. Maybe these were left in on purpose? Idk, but either way I don't like it and it feels unintentional and weird.
Secondly, this game doesn't automatically set your spawn point. You have to run into these respawn structures placed in basically every room throughout the map to set your spawn. However, a lot of the time they are really hard to see because they blend into the background and look similar to a lot of the other background objects in the game. Additionally, their hitbox is way too small, and sometimes it won't activate it even when you think you ran through it.
Thirdly, a lot of the cutscenes feel very barebones. Audio effects missing, no fitting music, weird gaps and pauses between animations, etc. Especially towards the end it made the story, which I think could have been very cool, feel super flat and unimportant.
Finally, sometimes there is just some jank level design. Sometimes there are large stretches of level that feel like they should have a checkpoint but don't. Sometimes difficult strawberry rooms require you to replay the previous section again because they inexplixably weren't given a checkpoint. I have no idea why. Sometimes levels are 10x harder because of a single spike that feels unfairly placed. Sometimes strawberry rooms don't clearly show where the false-wall exit is, so you (Yes, YOU) accidentally leave and are forced to waste time coming back.
My final gripe with the game is that, atleast the three controllers I tried, the controls for the tethering are wack. A lot of this game revolves around making precise angles with your tether to get through gaps and aim at certain objects. Unfortunately, on controller, once you reach the max range of your tether, it becomes extremely hard to adjust the angle. If you tap up, the tether moves like 10 degrees, which is a lot! Most of the time I only wanted 1-2 degrees. It doesn't respond to small movements of the control stick, it seems to be all or nothing. Maybe it's a deadzone issue with my controllers, but I've never hard this issue before, so I feel it's a problem with the game. This got so bad during level 3, where you repeatedly have to aim precisely to hit breakable walls, that I had to switch to a keyboard for the rest of the game.
So, overall, do I recommend this game? Sorta. It *was* fun at times. especially the levels with the speed ability and the one that travels in a straight line and bounces off of walls. But, I have no desire to play it again, and I was actually relieved when I learned there is no b side or c side like in celeste. I don't really see a reason to buy this game when there are hundreds of free celeste mods that have better mechanics. If the mechanics in the trailer look *really* fun to you, or the art and story intrigue you, go ahead! It is fun sometimes! Maybe you'll like it more than I did!
