Well I'll say this, it had it's ups and downs (although that was more now patched glitches) but once I finally got into it and beat it I must say it was a fun if not very roundabout time that I am currently attempting to see if there's a NG+ I can play around with because now I know how everything works and where everything is, doing another run or three sounds like it will be quite fun but not if I have to start from ground zero dood.
So to start the game focuses on Xandria, the blood and iron alchemist, (no relation to Giliath Osborne lol jk) in her journey for revenge! And boy is she just a bundle of rage! Understandably granted but she makes for quite the blunt protagonist but a good one in a decently interesting storyline/concept dood.
Combat is rather interesting, you use alchemical materials and circuits to combat the creatures in this game, materials add effects to your whip, while circuits allow you to essentially cast spells, all with elements to them, very important seeing as those are that you'll be using to make the game go from nard bustingly hard to just pretty darn hard, if you complain this game is too difficult and are not using your items and elements? You may wanna consider starting! lol dood.
You also have a blood mechanic, as one would expects from a blood and iron alchemist, as you attack enemies you build up a blood meter, this has one of four uses, only two of which I'll be covering! (seeing as these two show up right away) First is the charge whip attack, for partial meter you can do a powerful whip attack that does a fantastic amount of damage! Or for all your meter you can use an input that summons a large sword that does a crazy amount of damage! It's not game breakingly powerful but enough to rush through a boss fight which if you're going for a no damage boss run achievement? Is a must for a head start dood.
Music is pretty darn good in the game and it has a large variety of frankly really nice looking areas, to go with the great classic looking character sprites, the art however is...it's certainly not bad by any means, some characters look great with it like Xandria, then you have Atrue which you can see is a new character to play as (real nice on the dev!) who's character art is...uhhh well let's just say it would be way better if they used the art from the steam news for him XD but that has no significant bearing on the game honestly, just a personal eh dood.
Equipment comes in 6 kinds, I already mentioned two (Materials and circuits) but you also have accessories, helmets, armours and shoes, these are all pretty nice overall but aren't really your main source of armour ironically, we'll get to what is but if anything to start they help boost you up a little but quickly become useful for their effects making non effect equipment not quite as handy, that said that also means what equipment's there suffers for being too useful compared to others meaning you'll never equip anything else dood.
Enemies are difficult but mostly fair, that said the game has a massive issue of things having status effects, none of which aren't totally brutal, poison is small damage sure but when enemies hit so hard that little chip every so often is lethal, curse is just absurd, I'd much rather the dev consider it halving mana or just stopping circuit spells as it basically renders you entirely useless and then there's injured, this halves your physical damage and you don't want thing's overstaying their welcome in this, there are items to cure these but with so many enemies afflicting them and only 9 possible to hold each time (unless you grind drops which will go past that cap) it's usually a case of making travel more of a hassle until you get a certain something at least dood.
Bosses are crazy and cool with some great visual effects to the attacks, what I will say though is no matter how good the skills you get, the onslaughts you will suffer will likely make you reconsider going for all achievements, I mean it's the devs choice and I ain't gonna mock it by any means but I'd personally say it's difficult enough (on normal no less) to warrant it being not take no damage but instead use no potion, (especially considering some attacks outstay their welcome after you've killed the boss) which I have not succeeded in myself I wanna note XD there are ways to massively up damage too granted at the cost of essentially having 1 HP XD but all in all this achievement is not for the faint of heart in a game with fast moving enemies with contact damage and tracking bullets dood.
The map is pretty darn big, the dev suggested a certain time frame for completion and I don't think he's wrong in his estimate but didn't take into account that he as the creator knows where everything is XD as well as what time a certain something shows up (like 5:30-6:00 onward in my time lol) but ignoring that you travel a looot, luckily they weren't stingy in giving a speed boost circuit (much like the speed spells/souls in other metroidvania Castlevania games) but that has it's own risk with all the damage enemies do dood.
What I will say is despite the large and varied map, it can get a little convoluted and backtracky, I personally have no issue with this but I'll admit maybe a book or two with hints or an NPC to suggest or mention something relevant might be nice, in the end even I was struggling on where to go, the puzzles I heard some peeps complain about but frankly you have everything you need as long as ya read! And use a little common sense or even brute force lol but that said it's not like this would be the first metroidvania style game to have obscure things to progress, maybe a couple too many granted for such a large map but honestly it's fiiiine dood.
Finally I almost forgot but we'll talk about permanent stat upgrades, like I said equipment gives an okay boost but those are more for the effects in the end, (and have some fun game references to them too I will mention) but stats mostly come from levels and permanent stat ups for ATK, DEF, Stamina, INT, Health and MAG, so don't forget to look for secret areas! Also stamina is for various actions like the back dash among other things dood.
And that's it really, despite some of the struggles I had which the dev himself fixed for me the Belmont level legend that they are! I had a blast, during writing this I have been searching for a NG+ though while writing this, I will say 255 levels (which you unlock after beating hard mind you) isn't all that appealing when in the end you just end up wandering around unable to use those levels but that's the only real bad thing I have to say about the game seeing as NG+ Has always been a staple of metroidvanias, that said I apologise if I'm wrong, please I legit implore you to tell me if I'm wrong because I do want to do more runs of the game dood.
But yep that's it! Thanks for reading and I hope ya'all enjoy the game a whole bunch if you get it dood ^-^/
