Angeline Era is probably the strongest of Analgesic's games, especially when it comes to gameplay. The bumpslash combat is surprisingly fun, and a nice evolution of the systems found in the early Ys games. The bosses have creative gimmicks, and the levels are all pretty enjoyable and varied. I rolled credits but know that there's still a lot more to find, and I'm not hesitating to jump right back in.

This is a very cool game that I'm afraid is going to go massively overlooked. At its core, this is a very solid metroidvania with fun exploration and fairly challenging boss fights. There's a couple different systems that let you change up how you approach combat; I found myself shuffling around my skills in particular in order to deal with a couple late-game bosses. This is all tied together with a story that... starts out fairly simple and ends up going places I didn't really predict. It's cool, and there isn't so much text that you feel like you're being slowed down by it.

I haven't even finished the game completely yet, since there's a few different endgame things, but I wanted to get a review out to help visibility. Consider checking out the game; it's the type of one-man passion project that really deserves to be recognized.

Edit: I finished all the endings, can now wholeheartedly recommend the game. The fights in the final third of the game are incredibly cool, with some very funny gimmicks. I think the final fight is maybe a bit too easy, but it's mostly because your skills are very overpowered. Still very good though.

Phoenotopia Awakening is basically a modern-day Zelda 2 if it were an actual Zelda game, filled to the brim with inventive puzzles, fun combat, and a metric ton of hidden things to find. I played it to completion when it released on Switch last year and it ended up being my game of the year. It's hard to get across just how much content there is to find in this game, and almost all of it is unique and fun to solve. The combat system starts out fairly basic with only a short melee attack, but your options expand as you find more weapons throughout the game. That main content of the game is the puzzles, and there's a ton of variety there. Every area manages to have new unique gimmicks; I found myself still being surprised with new puzzles even at the end of the game. For presentation, I really enjoyed the art style and the soundtrack is fantastic. All in all, this is one of the best indie action platformers I've played, and I've played a lot of them.

Normally I wouldn't write a review for a game that came out in 2011 (or even write a review at all) but this game is so awful that I have to put it out there. 90% of the game is inoffensive but the last 10% is so bad that the game is impossible to recommend. It's like they purposely design the levels to be as annoying as possible, sticking the only hard jumps at the very end as well as using dumb instagibs. The worst levels have you repeating minutes of braindead sections over and over as you die to a single precise maneuver. It isn't fun, it's just rage inducing.