This is an action platformer. The store page claims “action adventure,” but make no mistake: this is a linear, stage-by-stage game. The only branching paths are dead-end, 1-2 room houses you can enter. Sometimes the houses have shopkeepers, and enemies do drop money, but for the most part, you can just ignore the houses and play the game linearly. The game is clearly inspired by Zelda II, especially given how the controls work: your jump arc is quick and forward-momentum is identical (so the platforming can’t get too complex), but there is a purchasable upgrade that makes jumping controls responsive (where you stop moving as soon as you let go of forward and go back to top speed the moment you hit the button again).

Most of the game is okay, but it has some beginner-developer problems, like some attacks not being conveyed properly. For example, when you defeat the very first boss (the giant slime) and it starts exploding, you’ll probably think that’s it, but then it suddenly bursts into smaller slimes that fly out quickly, and you’d only avoid it if you think to run away. For the record, no other boss does this; when they explode, they’re done for. The snakes also have this problem: they don’t animate or move at all, but they’ll shoot out projectiles occasionally: the purple ones shoot forward, and the green ones throw in an arc aimed at or near where you are (I never found out exactly what affects its trajectory). This is especially frustrating in the catacombs, as there’s one part where you have to walk above them and their projectiles can just barely hit you, but you can’t jump to avoid them because the ceiling is too low. Also, while you don’t need all the shop upgrades (and the vertical attack upgrade kinda breaks certain parts), the last level has segments where you absolutely have to trudge through lava, and if you haven’t purchased the “immunity to lava” upgrade, then too bad. Oh, and mimics are also inconsistent: sometimes, attacking them causes them to recoil backward, while other times, they’ll just keep moving forward and hit you anyway.

However, the part I disliked the most was the fact that, despite being a relatively modern game, it still copies the “spawn enemies from the sides of the screen regularly” thing that plagued so many older side-scrollers (it’s second only to limited continues for retro stuff that should never have been brought back). Not only is it a cheap replacement for actual level design, but the third level in this game applies that effect to enemies that are too high up to attack, but have a long chain below them that they drop right in front of you, and when you combine their constant spawning with the erratic, fast-hopping frogs and aimed-projectile-throwing sandworms in the same level, it’ll be hard to find a way past them without getting hit.

Overall, this one’s also hard to recommend. Mechanics are fine, but the level design can be pretty cheap sometimes and overly simplistic and kinda bland other times; it almost makes too much sense that the sequel is a roguelike.