Pankapu - Episode 2 DLC

Really liked the first episode, but with the edition of the mage all cohesion is lost. Having to switch characters for puzzles or fighting was fun, but when all 3 are involved... it's the jumping that is so infuriating, having to dodge a boss with 3 types of jumping/movement styles, AAAHHH!

This is a very well-made platformer game. It is basically a combination of Castlevania and Rayman in the sense that it has decent challenging combat (Castlevania) while at the same time having very difficult and satisfying platforming along with a good amount of collectables to… collect (Rayman). So you can switch between 3 modes: Bravery (Melee), Ardor (Ranged), and Faith (Magic). Each of the 3 different modes have something different to offer both in terms of combat and movement that will cause you to constantly switch between the 3 modes: • Melee ○ Combat: Has the highest DPS but the lowest range. Can block attacks, which can be more useful than dodging in some cases. ○ Movement: Can stick to magnets which allows you to "wall jump" and stick to the ceiling. • Ranged ○ Combat: Has the lowest DPS but the highest range (can shoot a full screen length). Can dodge attacks, which can be more useful than blocking in some cases. ○ Movement: Can double-jump. Enough said. • Magic ○ Combat: Has the "medium" DPS with the "medium" range. Attacks also have AOE, which is useful for smaller enemies. Can create a clone of himself to distract enemies. Can also completely freeze enemies for a few seconds (even works on bosses). Movement: Can glide, slowing descent and allowing you to reach platformers further away. Can also teleport, dodging obstacles I originally thought that I would either pick 1 or 2 favorite modes and just stick to them for the entire playthrough. But no I was CONSTANTLY switching between the 3 modes for both combat and platforming. The game does a really good job of introducing various mechanics and combinations so that you can develop your mastery of the game over time with little frustration. I eventually mastered double jumping from ranged and then switching to magic to glide to cover longer distances. I also mastered freezing bosses with magic, going to melee to do DPS, and then going back to magic to freeze them again (there's MP in this game so you can't do this forever :P) and then beat on them again with melee. There's so many other combinations that I mastered, but the point is that there's a LOT of combinations in both combat and platforming and it was really fun to master this game's mechanics. There are so many games where the combat and/or platforming are just 1-4 trick ponies, making the game become stale. Not so in this game. The game is constantly throwing new challenges for you to master which require different ways to deal with them than you did in previous levels. In regards to bosses, in the beginning the bosses were just "meh". Nothing special. However, the last 3 bosses were super interesting and super difficult. Like Dark Souls Level difficult. That's because they did the thing which I keep praising the game for, which is to switch between the different modes DURING the battle. This was really difficult, but it made it feel super rewarding when I finally beat the bosses :D There's also a nice amount of upgrades for your character. You don't "level up" like in Castlevania nor do you equip items to boost stats. Instead, you collect items to boost your HP, MP, and damage. After certain bosses, you also get "Nebulas" which change up your modes in certain ways for combat. E.g. your warrior has increased defense but decreased attack, your ranger can do AOE damage now, your mage can damage enemies with their clones, etc… There are 4 Nebulas, each changing up the 3 different modes, making them feel very rewarding once you got them. There's a story in this game. It's not all that interesting. You're a "Dreamkeeper" who is created by the "Good God" to fight this big baddie and all his minions. You meet a sidekick and some friends along the way who help you out. Power of Friendship and all that Jazz. I will say that the story got interesting in the last like….10 minutes right before the end of the game. You beat the big baddie, and the big baddie says he doesn't care because he'll just come back next time. Then he says that this has been happening since forever and the only way to beat him forever is to kill the "Bad God", but to do that you have to enter the "Bad Realm". When you try to do this, the Good God appears and forbids you from doing this for some reason, and the final boss is the "Good God". Okay that's actually very interesting and I was curious why the Good God doesn't want you to kill the Bad God. While this intrigued me, the game ended, and so since the story only intrigued me for 10 minutes, it doesn't get any credit. It's still mainly just a story about killing the big baddie and his minions. It's really unfortunate that this game didn't get more attention because it's just 1 tier below something like Ori and the Blind Forest (Ori is an 8/10 for me, so this is a 7/10). I can understand why though. In the beginning, the game is fairly slow paced. That's because in the beginning you only have the Melee mode. You don't get the Ranged mode until a few hours into the game, and then you don't get the Magic mode until a few hours after that. So all that praise I gave the game for switching between modes and introducing interesting mechanics and mastery doesn't really happen until much further into the game. So it's basically that the game starts, it's a 5/10. You get the ranged mode, it becomes a 6/10. Then you get the Magic Mode, it becomes a 7/10. Also, the developers really shouldn't have split this game into "Prologue" and "Episode 2". Personally, it made me think there would be more episodes so I didn't buy the game as early as I would've. Hell, I remember reading somewhere that there would be 8 episodes or something (Liar/Troll). It was only when I read somewhere that "Prologue and Episode 2" are Panakapu 1, and then Episode 3 and 4 would be Pankapu 2 did I finally buy this game. Really bad marketing decision to release the game in 2 separate parts using DLC rather than releasing the full game in a complete package. Ah well. Overall, this is a VERY good platforming game. The developers made the combination of Castlevania and Rayman really work here, which I applaud them for.