May Abandonment #1

Guacamelee! was an enormous letdown, a big disappointment.

For the 2.5 hours I spent with the game, it never went above mid. Exploration was never a thrill because the game signals very obviously (through the use of colors) whether you have the powerup needed to progress through an area or not. It's very jarring and unnatural to be roaming around a dungeon and then see these giant colored blocks that clearly represent a skill you haven't gotten yet. It's like, I know this is a Metroidvania but I expect the game to make some effort hiding these locks and keys.

Additionally, tying navigation to skills that are linked to stamina (such as the uppercut for vertical navigation) is limiting and sometimes force you to simply stop what you are doing and wait until your stamina recharges to be able to … move. It is terrible for pacing and breaks the flow. Combat is mostly mid, with no real good feel to it -- you mostly bash combos, but if you end up falling to the ground when the enemy was just winding up it's attack animation, you'll get hit without any chance to counter, for instance. The game loves to pit you in small arenas against waves of enemies, to the point it becomes hard to even read the situations, much less to react to them. Hit detection is quite bad, meaning you'll be inches from your enemy hitting the air, only for them to counter you heavily. Nowhere this was more obvious than during these Combo challenges, where the game asks you to perform a long combo in a certain order, and while pressing the buttons is not hard, hitting the enemy is where the challenge lies.

With the movement tied to stamina, platforming challenges become a chore. Jumps are a bit floaty and you don't have all the control that some of the timed jumps require. The character is very quick to snatch to walls, meaning sometimes you want to jump up a platform but instead hugs the wall, and jumping again sends you flying on the opposite way you want to go.

Lastly, I'll admit the theme of the game is really good, we don't see enough games themed around Mexican culture and the whole luchador vibe, but dialogue is really weak and the quests are quite basic. A Metroidvania that is not fun to explore, not fun to move around and not fun to fight against enemies is really a bad Metroidvania after all. I'm shocked it can carry a 90/95% rating on Steam -- people who rate it positively will be blown away when they play actually good Metroidvanias