Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition

Dandara is one of the most original Metroidvanias I ever played. Rather than walking and jumping, like traditional platformers, you leap from one surface to the next. The uniqueness of the transversal is executed with near perfection. As is the case with any Metroidvania, you gain new abilities that will give you access to new areas. While moving from one area to the next, you will encounter boss battles that are very satisfying to battle, as they have patterns that you need to learn. As for the story, it's easily the weakest aspect of the game. Everything is symbolic and very cryptic. I simply don't care to turn myself into a Charlie Day meme to figure out what's going on. Story aside, the game is a must play for any Metroidvania fan. Dandara is regularly on sale for less than $5, and at that price, the game is a steal.

I don't know exactly how to feel about this game. It's playable and some people will enjoy it more than others. As an avid mouse and keyboard gamer, this might be one of the very few games better played with controller. That being said, I still didn't use a controller :] . So the movement felt very clunky the entire playthrough, The direction you move changed incredibly fast and there was no setting to change the speed. You can, however, change to a different control scheme and there is some kind of autoaiming so you can manage. I liked the art, the music. It created a beautiful atmosphere. The combat and level design was okay. You could glide through levels by spamming the movement and enemies were fun to kill. I didn't like the storytelling and balancing felt weird, sometimes that you had to mostly damage tank to progress. Some lore interactibles described something that wasn't even there, the dialogue and characters felt very random. Overall 7/10 from me.