The Legend of Tianding

Not a lot of depth in its gameplay systems or story. The former is fine, but the latter is disappointing to me as I think the setting of colonial Taiwan is extremely interesting and could have been more fleshed out. I came into this thinking this would be a Metroidvania style game and while those elements exist, the game definitely leans more towards the 2D side scroller genre. Don't get me wrong, I love those too but I think that it suffers from trying to do both. For example, side quests are littered throughout the game to get you to replay previous levels yet they don't really reward anything of significance, neither in making the main character much stronger or in worldbuilding. The visuals are fine and probably one of the stronger points in the game alongside the combat when fighting normal enemies. Bosses are generally cheap, especially the final boss and for some reason the developers decided that the startup animation for recovering your health should be ridiculously long. This either sets you up to either die or negate whatever damage you healed. The poor English localization is a negative as well since it feels like it was just directly translated from the base to the target language. While my review seems largely negative, the game is not bad, its just not very good either. I would recommend if on discount because its relatively short and fine for that span of time but I guess I was expecting more from this.

A surprisingly solid 2.5D platformer with a pleasant aesthetic, fun combat, tight controls and a story that's just engaging enough to not hold back the game's other aspects. Dare I say a hidden gem?