Since I made this blog, I'm going to try updating throughout the year, rather than hold onto thoughts I may lose and clean up a post about the ~30 some games I post at once. Plus I guess I can use labels and other things to help me find the games I'm looking for when I want to reference the game throughout the year.
- Genre: Exploratory Action Platformer(Metroidvania)
- Time Played: 9h 41m
- Too Short/Long: Just about right, leaning toward too long for what it offers.
- Pleased/Disappointed: Very pleased.
- Why I played: I kept seeing it in "Indie Hidden Gems of 2022" lists, I did have it in my wishlist, but it was released in April, so it took me a year to finally pick it up.
- Recommend to others: Somewhat strong recommend, if you think it's your cup of tea.
Haiku is easy to pick up, but can be pretty challenging at times. Early game I was worried it was leaning too hard into the Souls formula, but I think early game might just be the toughest parts because you haven't quite gotten all your upgrades. While it does have a dodge roll and stamina bar I think that's where the similarities end. I wouldn't call this a souls-like.
That said, I did 100% it and many metroidvania style games leave you a bit overpowered if you get to that point, so maybe I was just overpowered come later game? But I was feeling a significant difficulty decrease roughly 75% of the way through and it helped me get through the map quickly to achieve that 100%
Bosses were still pretty well rounded, taking a couple tries to finish, but by the end traversal wasn't an issue at all.
The story/lore are fine. It's just corrupt robot nonsense, but it does a lot with the atmosphere with the music and sound effects despite a limited screen-to-screen color palette.
Few complaints with this one, I liked it most early on but am glad I played it through.
