This hand drawn action, platformer is a wonderful mind melt of a metroidvania. It'll have you questioning your own mental wellbeing at times with themes that can't help but resonate and gameplay that's an absolute joy.

You play as John, John has a couple of issues such as the camera on his head and the fact that he's woken up in this mad fever dream of existence. The overall aim of the game is a little vague but essentially your aim is to wake up from the nightmare / slump that you find yourself in. This game is, engaging with a narrative heavy plot (or sub plot) about self reflection and self discovery whilst battling your inner psyche.

The world is divided up into multiple biomes like most metroidvania's with you key nemesis Bucktooth appearing to cause havoc and headache along the way. He's an interesting character with his own story arch that like many well rounded antagonists.

The worlds are beautifully crafted with some amazing particle effects and background art which helps create wonderfully rounded areas for you to explore. There are some interesting side quests along the way too.

The gameplay loop is addictive, with smooth controls that are easy to learn. It borrows heavily from the other successful games in this genre without stealing it's homework too. I feel that's a classy touch by having different mechanics that the player uses to travers means whilst you can compare it to other successful games it also doesn't feel like a parody of them.

Explore, Kill, Die Repeat! Metroidvanias at their core have this amazing loop especially with good solid mechanics it means it's addictive figuring out where and what next or how to get past that boss! In this game the currency is Baulbs you get them for killing enemies, finding hidden items and glass jars. Sometimes when you die a thief will come and steal these from you. He then plays hide and seek with you so if you can find his eyes lurking in the background you can earn your money back! The currency for me whilst it's important is semi irrelevant.

There is a shop to spend the currency you earn I must admit I'm never a big item user when playing games and although they are decent items I don't feel like I needed them though the safety pin is a time saver if you have a few.

To change your characters perks you use orbs. These orbs mutate as you use them more. This feature is great as you can't stop the evolution, this means you choose to play through the change or choose to swap which orb you have equipped. You start with a slot for 1 orb and quickly enough can afford two with a 3rd also being available. I'm unsure if there are more than that as I didn't need to upgrade past the 2nd slot and the 3rd is quite expensive. Orbs can be found from doing quests for npc's or finding them in hidden rooms. There's a lot of different builds available some of the unlocked orbs need unlocking by the lighthouse man.

The hand drawn 2d art is amazing it's got quite a Rick and Morty feel to the art direction. Sometimes when coupled with the narrative it feels like it could be part of the same universe.

The level design is amazing, there are lots of secret areas and hidden rooms. Some areas need key code entry if you can figure the puzzles out and you need to look for the light to access lots of the hidden area's sometimes I could see an area but couldn't quite figure out how to get into there though.

For me the music was the weakest part of the game. It's not that it's bad and when coupled with sound effects it's really quite immersive however it doesn't have lots of memorable music that stays stuck in my brain like some games do. That's ok though as not all studio's want to have an amazing soundtrack and here I'm telling myself it was a creative choice not to take away from the story and journey you go on as John.

This game is deep there are multiple endings (I feel but cannot confirm) I'm pretty sure I left 3 optional bosses too although I haven't been back to that area to confirm it since picking up what I felt was the needed item. This game really is worth every penny.