Batbarian: Testament of the Primordials Reviews

ayo? a good game

Wow, cool pixelart, nice game concept. I'm just starting out, but after exploring everything in Rebel Transmute, this seems like the best alternative, hey?! ;D. that will certainly be an exciting time. The only pity is that there is no German translation of these ingenious philosophical creations...

Wanted to like this and it started out great, but after a while it turned into something I didn't really want to play. I enjoyed the humour, the presentation and the fact I thought I was getting a Metroidvania. Only issue is, it's not a Metroidvania, it's a puzzle platformer, and at times, a very tough one. This wouldn't be a major issue save for the fact the actual control of the character is less than responsive and jarring. There are "dead zones" of initial input where the character doesn't move at all, making it feel unresponsive to the touch. If you don't "get up to speed" enough before jumping, you won't make where you want to go, inspiring no confidence around movement at all. When you progress and are forced into intricate jumping sections this becomes a real problem. I missed so many jumps because the character acceleration wasn't quite there when I jumped, leaving me a pixel or so short repeatedly, often ending in my death. Unsure why this design choice was made, if the player is required to do precise platforming under duress at least make sure the controls are precise and reliable. Something like Hollow Knight nails movement perfectly and doesn't enforce any sort of dead periods or weird acceleration on the player and I know, in that game, if I mess up a jump or movement, it's my fault. Not true for this game. Couple the movement issues with the control scheme being super demanding, it becomes a problem. You move with the left stick, aim "stones" (or other throwables) with the right, whilst juggling buttons for jumping, attacking and so on. When you're being asked to make multiple precise jumps, to platforms that are in motion, whilst enemies are attacking you it gets heated. As part of the same sequence the game may expect you to line up an accurate throw mid-air with the right stick in a single second before the platform you're stood on launches you into spikes. This quickly became the norm. The game turned into a giant trial an error of "can you press the right 20 inputs perfectly in the next 5 seconds whilst dealing with the weird player movement and not dying". The answer for the most part was no. This was a real shame as I genuinely wanted to progress and see the rest of the game, but I felt my time was just being disrespected and I wasn't having fun. So I turned it off and went to play something else.