Aeterna Noctis Reviews

The movement and platforming is tight which makes it extra annoying that they missed the ball on this one. Levels are unnecessarily large and the biomes are pretty bland and generic. Unfortunately they causes the majority of the gameplay to get gets tedious quickly. Bosses generally only have a few moves so get repetitive very quickly as well. I honestly believe if they would have included only half the content but spend the same amount of time this could have been really good.

The game starts slow but evolves into some top tier platforming goodness. Regarding combat, the basic enemies are bland but all the bosses were produced with love! A solid game overall.

The level design and exploration is great. Platforming is tough, but fair. Combat is enjoyable. Music is awesome. However, there are so many bad things, that I cannot recommend buying this game at full price. If it were a $15 game, it would make sense to forgive such problems, but selling itself at top tier indie price isn't justified. The art style is all over the place. As if they took something from each metroidvania and just piled it all together in one game. You get crystal caverns and enemy style from Hollow Knight, and then you got most of the game in Castlevania/Bloodstained style. All with a little pinch of Steamworld Dig and who knows which games. It's so different, feels like two different teams made the game without communicating. Now, I could even go over that, but then you have a copy of game mechanics as well without understanding why they work in other games. You need to buy map markers for 5000? Which is like a 20-30 minute grind. For ONE map marker. With branching paths, areas restricted with powers, quests, etc. it's so easy to forget where are the things you need to do. Even 16 markers are not enough. I spent all to buy them and I still run out. Which leads to endless backtracking just trying to find where the thing was. Now, you do get more powerful, so early enemies are easy, but to backtrack you also need to go through difficult platforming seconds again. Another problem is the visual clutter. Often you get hurt or hit without seeing the threat before hand, and in some boss fights I struggled to see where's my character on the screen. It's like someone said "we need more detail" and they just copy/pasted stuff all over the place. Now, I was able to put up with all that because I really liked the exploration and combat. The thing that broke me to give the thumbs down is the arrow aiming nonsense. You cannot stand still while aiming the arrow shot. The aim with controller is very finicky, which wouldn't be a problem if the number of arrows wasn't limited and you had time to aim. But no, you get one second to aim, and your character is still moving in the direction you push your joystick. I have no idea why they though to use the same stick for both and then make them work at the same time. This is a major design flaw that breaks the game. I will probably keep playing, hoping that the arrow shooting is minimal and only required for optional quests. Get it at huge discount. Not polished enough to justify the full price.

Great metroidvania with amazing visuals, explorations, movement, combat and abilities. Platforming is very difficult but never felt too punishing, so it was enjoyable to play to the very end.

I really wish I knew how many of those who played this game were able to finish it. Crazy level of difficulty. We said it would be difficult but not to the point of being frustrating.