The game starts with an explanation that it was a labor of love made in 2 years, and while I feel bad for telling a passionate team how their game failed to be any good, it's more akin to telling a toddler why their behavior was bad. If you don't, that team won't grow and mature to make something of actual value.

As for the actual gameplay itself, dialogue and story are simple and barely there, but some random NPCs have information you might actually want for exploration, so talking to them is a must. Your character doesn't move very fast, I got used to it, but ladders are everywhere and you move even slower climbing them. Combat is just a short range melee, which is awful when there's so many enemies with ranged attacks that require you to slowly push a block forward or eat the hit of a random throwing arc just so you can move on to the next screen. Make sure your health isn't too low though because 3 hits sends you back to the last checkpoint, which is typically 8-9 screens back from whence you came. Grinding for health drops is annoying, but it won't matter much since instant kill water and spikes are everywhere, often forcing you to wait 4 minutes before attempting the jump that killed you the last time. Only to find out that the jump you made brings you to an area for a power you haven't obtained yet, so chalk one more backtracking adventure on the terrible featureless map that tells you nothing about the rooms you visit. All for a pointless collectible that lets you deal 0.05 extra damage to bosses.

I find myself asking why I'm not just playing a better action adventure style game while I'm staring at my 30th death screen. From what I've heard, Alwa's Legacy the successor to this game does a lot more with its title, so just skip this one and play that instead, though I can't vouch for its quality yet.