This is a really solid boss battle game. The frog aesthetic is fantastic, and all the boss designs and gimmicks are a lot of fun. All the collectible bugs with different effects really emphasized the amphibian focus. Bosses ranged from annoying to peak design. Monsters are all a little too fast and end up face ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ you which is frustrating. Final two bosses rival Souls design in terms of enjoyment. A great selection of weapons with split upgrade paths really let you choose how you want to play the game. Very enjoyable game for ~$10-20, but didn't feel motivated to get all the achievements after the credits rolled.

I was expecting pure camp but this was a genuinely solid way to spend a couple hours. Not scary, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up in all the right ways. I always like to play a short, goofy, B-Movie horror game the night before Halloween and this fit the bill perfectly. Takes the same amount of time as a horror movie would, and brings the same level of enjoyment.

Bus driver's voice actor needs a raise. His delivery was peak.

This game doesn't make a lick of sense but it's got amazing art and an over-intellectualized, philosophy-major-drunk-in-a-coffee-shop vibe that I kind of ♥♥♥♥ with. I'd probably have to play this game about eight more times to start to develop a minor understanding of what it rambles about. I don't really know what I took away from the experience, but I do know that it was cool.

Centum truly is a bizarre experience. It doesn't explain itself to you, it doesn't lay out its' rules or lore in a proper fashion. It is a discombobulated, unnatural, and mind-bending experience. It is a game designed to pull you away from typical brain-rot and demand your attention. It'll make you reflect on yourself, your destination, the road traveled. It's weird and unique, but know that it is much like coffee and will not be to everyone's taste. Playing it is like reading a book that doesn't make sense, and will likely require multiple playthroughs to piece together. If a cryptic narrative that you need to slowly digest is your cup of tea, try Centum out this spooky season.

I do bird / wildlife photography in real life but I can only take pictures of Blackbirds and Chipmunks for so long. This game scratches the itch I'm missing. I love the 'photography' genre of games, and this is one of the best on the market. It's a very cute game to relax and unwind with. Only a couple hours long, but it heals the soul.

Dokimon nails the creature collector 'vibe' perfectly. The designs are consistently good, and that is what makes or breaks a game in this genre for me. If your monsters are interesting, I will tolerate a lot. The art style for trainers and Mons alike is great, efficiently mixing a sense of nostalgia with modern design. The overall theme of the game is darker, which is a nice change of pace. The main villains want to basically form demonic pacts with Mons so they can harness an Old God who captured your childhood friend. This is an idea that never really gets fleshed out too much, and it does feel as if the villains were thrown in just to capture the nostalgia of fighting Team Rocket. Nonetheless, it was a cool concept. The final boss area and 'bound' Dokimon were done well, making the corruption of the final boss feel tangible. If you view Dokimon simply from it's experience of going from beginning to end, it's a good game that doesn't overstay it's welcome.

Random Things I Liked:
-Designs for mons are, predominantly, very good
-NPC dialogue could be genuinely funny
-Interacting with the Dokimon that follows you like you could in Pokemon Yellow is very cute
-Some of the tracks are pretty, especially in the "Alt World"
-Whirlpools signifying the random encounters when surfboarding is ingenious, made traversing water so much more enjoyable than other games in the genre
-Trainer battles were consistently fun, double battles were introduced at the perfect time to spice up the combat

However....

Dokimon's error is it has one too many annoyances that made me pull away from 100%. If treating it as a monster collector game and aiming to get all the monsters, this game becomes a pain in the ass pretty quickly. My biggest problem with the game is the absolute lack of XP you get. I grinded, I did not rush through the game, I battled all wild mons and trainers I met, and yet at the end of the game and halfway through the end game content, my starter still has not fully evolved. I ran out of steam for the game, and do not want to sit there grinding for hours and hours just to get a couple of achievements for evolving the fairies to their final evolution. I would love to go back and finish the 'Not Pokedex'TM but the tediousness of leveling up is steering me away. Increase XP gain and I will be back to finish it.

Other random things I wish were different:
-Let Dokimon evolve when they level up without having to be the actively used monster
-Show Dokidex entries when capturing a monster for the first time
-Show Elite Trainers pictures or something on the trainer card
-Copy Pokemon's 'failed to catch' sequence; waiting the whole three shakes to see I failed a capture was a bit jarring
-The move-set roster seemed limited, most Mon's having the same handful of attacks.
-This last gripe is more of a suggestion for the developer going forward, as this game was solo developed so resources will be limited. People love icons, or reoccuring interesting characters. The villain team lacked this. Most people remember Archie, Maxie, Cygnus, Giovanni, etc because they had a consistent presence and they made their presence known. Simply adding a memorable villain boss to the next game and fleshing out their ideologies a bit more could add for a more interesting experience.

All in all the game has good bones, good designs, and was fun to play for the main story. Afterwards is when it gets largely tedious and I no longer found the desire to combat the game's shortcomings and strive for completion. It is only $6.59 right now for the Summer Sale and that is a perfect price for the experience. This developer has the imagination to continue creating well-made creature collector games, and I am looking forward to what they publish in the future.

Bro, top-down shooter bullet hell with gears of war active reload, bunch of weapons and gear to tailor your play-style to, responsive controls, and challenging as hell but well-designed? I'm obsessed. I don't often review games but after ~25 hours of dopamine fueled achievement grinding, I gotta preach the good word about this game. Sinking my teeth into the Severed mode was one of the most fun, albeit brutal, challenges in gaming I've ever completed. This game nails the idea of difficulty, and relies on you learning the maps, how to avoid traps set on said map, enemy placements, and when to use or conserve special ammunition. No cheap ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ here. Perfect game to turn your mind off and get absorbed into for a week.

I view this to be the best platform fighter available on the market. Leagues above Multiversus, Brawlhala, NASB, etc. I haven't touched Multiversus since this game came out. Vastly different from the first iteration, which was my favorite platform fighter before this released. Combat is fluid, snappy, visually amazing. Character design translated very well to 3D. Ledge hogging, grabs, wave dashing galore. The grab pummel mechanic spices up an otherwise frustrating feature. The characters are all very unique in their gameplay and learning a new character almost feels like learning an entirely different game (which is great). This is what a modern platformer should be; it wears its Melee inspiration on its sleeve and wears it well.

On the other hand, holy smokes are there some fundamental gameplay decisions that I just vehemently disagree with. The strength they gave to floor hugging takes SO much intertia out of the flow of the game. I'll be ready to whoop some ass and just holding "down" can immediately put an end to the advantage state I gained. Grabbing seems excessive in this game; that might be a silly complaint and I do not have constructive advice on how to tune it down properly lol. Grabs feel heavily disjointed for a handful of characters that make it feel like Melee's Marth sometimes. I think the game would be more enjoyable if shields had a bit less health. You can go into, and attack out of, shield VERY fast, and it can make it frustrating when your opponent whiffs, you believe you have the chance to punish, but shield comes out and your chance is gone. Shields can take like 3 or 4 smash attacks until they break, and I think I would have more fun if they tuned shields down a bit to allow for more aggressive game play / better counter play.

My last comment to make is that this game is absolutely brutal for a beginner. I've been playing platformer fighters all my life so I have a general understanding of wavedashing, DI, tech-chasing, etc (I'm still ass though), but there is no tutorial or modes to help someone learn the game. This results in the player base being bloated with die-hard people who have been playing since Rivals 1, and turn a fighting game into a cut-scene for you. I'm not the worst player, but I'm also not wave-dashing 18 times in 2 seconds and trapping you in a Zetterburn rush-down mix-up massacre. Much of the player base seems to fall in the latter category. It is a struggle to improve without those who match your skill level to learn and play against, and without sufficient ways for a newcomer to learn the game, this will remain a game "dominated by a majority elite". I love this game, but it is not an accessible game.

I want this game to grow and improve, and I will continue playing, but I hope the dev team listens to general feedback to make the game more fun, and works on ways to increase their playerbase.

PS: Olympia update is not it. This'll probably be my time to walk away. All the universal changes with this update make the game play feel much worse to me. Game becomes far mashier with the big increase to nair out of shield. Hit boxes were changed and not for the better. Tech times were changed which is just uncomfortable to adjust to after having adapted to it after all this time. Clairen somehow became more unfun to fight against. The gameplay just feels much faster and not in a way that's enjoyable.

This game is an abusive relationship that I won't recommend to others, but will likely keep playing. There's so much good and so much wrong with the game. If you're looking for a fun casual platform fighter it's perfect. Its mostly well put together and I have fun with it. If you've a competitive bone in your body, this ain't it. I've never seen a game with such a budget have such bad hit/hurt boxes. Ranked still isn't added somehow. No option to turn off maps with stage hazards. So many features from the beta were taken away (still waiting on post match stats). Half of my matches crash, and the fan base is full of people who just idle for whatever reason so a huge percentage of my 2v2 matches end up a wash because the other person is idling. Balancing seems to be all over the place. Combos don't seem to feel as juicy as they were in the beta. I honestly don't view the micro-transactions as an issue. It's a free game in 2024, battle passes and bloated costume stores are to be expected. However, events keep adding more and more missions that seem to require you to pay. (Eg: Wear a Matrix suit as an Adventure time character; maybe its free in the super long rift event but I'm not playing this game to play obtuse single player content). The rift mode is an interesting addition, not to my taste, but missing out on so many stars because I don't play with a friend is bothersome, when its intended to be single player content. The gems system as a whole I'm not a fan of. The game is fun, and it's got a great roster that'll continue to expand, but until its basics are fixed and some things are added I cannot recommend it.

TLDR; Fix your hit/hurt boxes and add ranked already and I'll stop complaining.

Update: Pros: Ranked added and Samurai Jack now available. Cons: Ranked system is trash and Samurai Jacks hitboxes are laughably bad. I can't defend this game anymore.
Update Update: PPG are cool but how the ♥♥♥♥ do you guys still not know how to make hit/hurt boxes this far into development. Your attack priority system is delusional and your dodge mechanic gets more nonsensical as the game 'progresses'. Maybe take a breather on pumping out $20 skins and fix your game.

I've never felt more mixed about a Metroidvania before. The art style, the boss design, the music, the amount of weapons, the giant skill tree with extensive weapon move sets; it should all make for a fantastic metroidvania. And in its own right is is, it does a lot right. It's lore is interesting, albeit scattered, its got a ton of bosses and each of them were relatively fun fights, and its huge map with tons of areas to explore can be a huge appeal to some. Yet, I found so many aspects of the game to feel lacking. The combat has such potential to be great, but the decision to include contact damage takes away from it so much. Each weapon has a fair amount of skills you can learn, but I found myself not using about 80% of them because doing so would put you at too high of a risk of taking contact damage. The katana's jump attack is what I ended up using to fight mobs and bosses alike nearly the whole game, and without contact damage I feel as if I could've had more fun by stringing together combos more seamlessly. If they made enemies move-sets more dangerous and removed contact damage, I think my overall opinion of this game would've been much better. I also think the map was oversized, and the limited number of locations to where you can fast travel made it so I did not want to collect everything and finish all the achievements, which is a rarity for me when it comes to metroidvanias. I also wish the weapons/magic were scaled differently. It is a linear progression scaling, so if you found a weapon with a cool move set around level 50, it will be borderline useless by the time you reach level 80. I found this particularly bothersome with the magic attacks. I would've liked to experiment more with different staffs and elements but due to the scaling it was not practical to do so.

I think Afterimage has great bones, and was a fun enough experience to keep me invested for 40 hours, which is a feat for a metroidvania. Regardless, I think there are a handful of design philosophies implemented that could be improved, and by the end of the game I was fatigued and ready to be done, well before reaching 100% completion.

Kaiju Gorilla is the coolest ultimate ability I've seen in a Vampire Survivors clone yet.

I think this game has a very solid basis. The ultimate abilities are an awesome addition to the genre, and are a perfect mix of goofy and creative. Sending the Death Star on dinosaurs, and blasting them with Tie Fighters isn't something I would've imagined I'd ever experience. I think as the game progresses in its development, the ultimate abilities will be one of the main things that draw me to this over other games in the genre. I'm excited to see where this game goes, and as a big fan of the genre, I think this one is worth picking up and supporting.

Needless to say, I do have some suggestions / criticisms. With it being early access there are some quirks to be expected; small glitches here and there. But for main game play elements I would suggest adding some sort of health regen upgrade, or even an upgrade to make health pick-ups spawn more often, especially since Max HP upgrades do not give you the extra health from the bonus. Also, I do not quite yet understand the element immunities. Picking a fire elemental weapon to start the game can make it frustrating since this does zero damage to some of the enemies that spawn at the beginning, so I have yet to see a reason to start with any of the elements for my starter weapon. Also, achievements are a huge motivator for me in this genre of game. Games like Vampire Survivors or Hall of Torments have hundreds of achievements and I love grinding for them, so I would like to see more achievements added to this game. On top of that, the current achievements do not seem to work so that is one bug I would like to see fixed.

All in all, very excited to see how this game progresses in its develop. Would love to see more dino types and ultimate abilities added along the way. There's a good foundation here with creative ideas, and it has my support.