Zapling Bygone Reviews
Zapling Bygone is a twisted metroidvania where you murder your foes and steal their abilities by wearing their skulls and absorbing their consciousness into your hive-mind.
App ID | 1489110 |
App Type | GAME |
Developers | 9FingerGames |
Publishers | 9FingerGames |
Categories | Single-player, Steam Achievements, Full controller support |
Genres | Indie, Action, Adventure |
Release Date | 5 Aug, 2022 |
Platforms | Windows |
Supported Languages | English |

179 Total Reviews
147 Positive Reviews
32 Negative Reviews
Mostly Positive Score
Zapling Bygone has garnered a total of 179 reviews, with 147 positive reviews and 32 negative reviews, resulting in a ‘Mostly Positive’ overall score.
Reviews Chart
Chart above illustrates the trend of feedback for Zapling Bygone over time, showcasing the dynamic changes in player opinions as new updates and features have been introduced. This visual representation helps to understand the game's reception and how it has evolved.
Recent Steam Reviews
This section displays the 10 most recent Steam reviews for the game, showcasing a mix of player experiences and sentiments. Each review summary includes the total playtime along with the number of thumbs-up and thumbs-down reactions, clearly indicating the community's feedback
Playtime:
300 minutes
👍 : 0 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
47 minutes
Worst map ever. Also, STOP PUTTING CORNIFER INTO EVERY METROIDVANIA.
👍 : 0 |
😃 : 0
Negative
Playtime:
230 minutes
The highlight of Zappling Bygone is that it tries some unique and interesting things and manages to pull them off pretty well despite being pretty basic and on the easy side. For example one of the first abilities the player unlocks is wall climbing which unlocks the map in an interesting way. It's quite open too, you can go beat bosses in any order which can make certain fights or areas harder or easier depending on where you go (and which abilities you obtain) first. It also has some customisation to the character allowing you to tweak the player character to suit your playstile to a degree.
The downside to all this is that backtracking is kinda annoying since you can't teleport between save stations, only designated warp points and there is far to few of them. The mechanics were a bit rough for me too, with jumping feeling a bit floaty and contact damage meaning that it was easy to take a double hit from an enemy :/ It's also a bit directionless, the game doesn't really guide you in any way through the world so it can take a moment to figure out where you should be going sometimes. This is especially annoying with such limited fast travel.
However, given how short and easy the game is, these won't be as bothersoime as they would in a bigger title.
I recommend getting this on a sale, it's a fun short game play through for fans of the genre :)
👍 : 0 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
256 minutes
Cute little game. Hollow Knight by way of Carrion, as you glob your way around a map and find skulls to steal that give abilities and charm slots. A bit opaque at times, the bosses tended to be fairly linear, and it definitely has some of the roughness around the edges from being a solo project. Had a good time.
👍 : 0 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
192 minutes
It's not terrible but it has many things that soured the experience for me. I still enjoyed it a bit but sadly can't recommend it.
The colour palette can be too dark. It's something difficult to see where I can or can't go. Same goes with enemies, sometimes I just don't see them. Probably my biggest frustration here.
Would have prefered if everything was in pixel art. Besides the colours, the pixel art is quite nice but character art for dialog, skulls and perks in the menu are not in pixel art and they just look kinda off here.
It's unfortunate that not all skulls give a permanent upgrade. So many optional ones that just aren't worth it for their slots when the ones you get for progression have good enough slots. It doesn't have to be movement abilities for each one, optional ones could get you health upgrades or something.
Speaking of abilities, not the best at explaining them. My Metroidvania experience lets me intuitively know what they do but any ability you gain is never forced to use in the place you got them in to teach you the basics. You're just supposed to figure out where this new ability can even be used without being forced to try it out first.
The length of the game also isn't that big for its asking price.
👍 : 4 |
😃 : 0
Negative