Greak: Memories of Azur

I'm so sorry for giving this game a meh review. I loved it right up to a certain point, and I surely wanted to. The orchestral music, the atmosphere, the crafting and progress system are all expertly done and right there on par with gaming experiences of much larger budgets. Unfortunately also on par with the whole Metroidvanian fanboy jungle is the difficulty. What was just fine and doable those first six hours horrifies and frustrates immensely afterwards. First they throw some boss at me that I could only defeat by wasting 70 arrows from a safe spot. Then they introduce that guy with the grappling hook, whose introductory scene was so difficult (conceded, probably owing to keyboard and mouse) that I could only do it on the sixth try. But the boss immediately after that introductory scene I will probably never kill. Here I'm supposed to avoid the attacks of some towering hyper-active dude with a shield –a shield that he's throwing around like he's Captain America – by jumping around like crazy and raising my own non-throwable shield, which only works in the direction you're facing. AT THE SAME TIME I'm supposed to protect my younger sibling from the attacks of the same dude. I'm killed after five hits, she's killed after four. Sure I could think of some strategy to make this work after a gazillion tries, have her somehow protected by the shield, switch characters, fire some rounds, place her behind the boss with the shield while I keep him occupied. But, in all seriousness, I think I'll leave that wondrous skill to some 16 year old youtube streamer, where I'll probably eventually watch the ending of the game. I am actually glad I bought the more expensive version of the game so I'll at least have the soundtrack to enjoy for a bit longer. If unfair boss fights are your cup of tea, buy this game, you'll definitely enjoy it. To the developers, research: Accessability.

A charming Metroidvanian adventure. Loved: The art, music, gameplay, puzzles and story. Didn't love: The lack of a map and co op. Meh: Managing all 3 characters could get tedious (especially during boss fights!). Hope to see more of this universe and dev.

I really love the graphics and music of this game, and thanks for GOG to offer it during X-Mas, but outside of that it's a very weak game. It's one of those game that it could be amazing but some decisions ruin it: - Playing a character outside of the female main character feels like playing a worse game because attacking from afar is actually a lot better and it's not even because of the range, the melee here is actually bad because the game punishes you way too much. - Melee gameplay looks wrong, you're way too punished for your actions, specially when you've to jump or roll. Some parts are so small to do those actions that it's like you're forced to eat damage. And you don't have a lot of HP for that so... it's like forced difficulty. It's nice that we've to be careful and think before we do some actions, like in those fights against the cat-like monsters, but some parts with those pollen plants are like... you're going to lose HP in here unless you roll to outside of this platform and we don't care if you've to do a lot of jumps to get back here. - Moving the party is also horrible. Sometimes you don't know if you're moving the party or yourself. You waste time checking if you're doing it right or not. I like the Lost Vikings idea tho, it's cool to use a party for puzzles. - Saves are ANNOYING! I don't know what else to say. You have a huge talk? You either save after that or you will have to repeat it after die. You got an item during it and the auto-save icon appeared? It doesn't matter, you didn't save according the game. Game is gorgeous and music amazing too but that's it, it's a weak game outside of that. And it's a shame because there are a lot of good ideas here :\

As I've said in my other reviews, I don't blame devs for this, they probably had no idea that the unity engine does this now, but you should still be warned