Blade Chimera

• Genre: Action Platforming (Metroidvania)
• Spoiler Free Review: Yes.
• Time Played: 12 Hours?
• Too Short/Long: About right.
• Soundtrack: Pretty standard fair, nothing that really sticks out.
• Why I played: I've played all the other games made by Team Ladybug, which are mostly the same genre.
• Did I cry: No.
• Jank: Not very janky. The only jank is maybe the slight awkwardness of the controls. It's something you get used to, but I definitely had to rebind them to even achieve that.
• Difficulty: It's mostly pretty easy. I don't recall there being a difficulty setting, but your level ups and equipment mostly outpace enemies.
• Recommend to others: Not really, not to most. While I enjoyed it, it's not really the best of it's genre. It's aesthetically pleasing and has a unique mechanic but overall I'd recommend many before it. If you've exhausted almost all other games in the genre though, it's certainly not bad.

Team Ladybug makes some pretty visually appealing games. This is their third action platforming metroidavania of the the four games they've made. The visual appeal is good at drawing you in, or me at least, but you need to have substance beyond that to make something really special and I think that's what each of their games really lacks.

The other two were both licensed so I didn't expect them to be the best things ever. They were both decent, but I think I felt like they were missing something. Especially in the level-design category. This is where Blade Chimera doesn't do better, and arguably even worse. Visually? More appeal - there is more stuff going on in the background. Functionally? Less creative, less interactivity. There are a wealth of corridors where it's just a hallway and you're meant to just fight your way through a dozen enemies. Everything is still very awkwardly angled and random to a point the design just feels like they're using a "metroidvania generator", or a "2d platformer game maker", so they can just place tiles down for each room. Very few rooms offered gimmicks or unique set pieces. They did introduce a mechanic in the level design that interacted with the main mechanics of the game, but only used it only a handful of times. It's a shame because it could have resulted in some very cool puzzle rooms, using that combination of mechanics. So the overall level design kinda stinks.

As far as navigating, I'm not sure I have played a metroidvania where you could teleport almost anywhere almost any time. There are a few exceptions, but during most general game play, you can teleport to most map tiles, not just specific waypoints. It's made stuff like side missions and collecting all the collectibles trivial, but I'd say trivial in a good way. I like the things that make a metroidvania a metroidvania, but sometimes the backtracking is too much. With this having less than stellar level design, and not many navigational upgrades, it works out.

What makes the level design stand out a bit more, is generally the enemies are abundant and large enough, that you're rarely moving past them without destroying them. As you outlevel/equip them, they become trivial, but as you initially progress through the game, you have to stand and fight each enemy, or each group of enemies one at a time, and it has you do that a lot. It does shine a bit more in the combat department. Besides your default, use two weapons which just swing/shoot/throw. Your main thing is a hovering sword that performs a variety of functions like interacting with the environment in ways that other games would require a skill point or power up for, in addition to becoming a bubble shield, and also healing you. Additionally it has some skills of it's own you can acquire as you advance.

Many enemies benefit from you utilizing your special weapon in a special way, so the general mechanics of Blade Chimera were pretty solid. In fact, I thought the boss fights were possibly the best parts of the game. There was one or two things I would change about a couple of them, so not perfect. But most were great, maybe a little too easy at worst - with the "true ending" boss being a major exception.