Why would I want to explore a part of an area, hit a wall, get nothing out of it, and be forced to go back down the same path I took to get to the wall? This will be a reoccuring theme.Īfter beating the first boss and touching things you shouldn't be touching, you cross the bridge and arrive at the first large city - Atai. The game does in fact allow you to explore the Sunflower Road and reach the bridge to the next island, however it will arbitrally prevent you from going further. There are a few minor areas with collectibles, but they are all a dead end (the case for every other area in the game, no exceptions). You are supposed to go to the Anuri Temple - a Zelda-like dungeon. The beginning of the game is fairly straightforward. The game operates on quests, like an RPG - and I think it's a pretty good comparison, this game gives me the vibes I'd get from a classic jRPG.īut let's get more technical and analyze the structure of the game. That kind of feeling is almost absent in this game, where we always have someone directing at what we should do now. ![]() The kind of feeling that is found in all metroids, all castlevanias, Hollow Knight, ESA and so on. The thing that I've come to love about those games is the unique feeling of going into an isolated, otherwordly, often hostile place, exploring it alone, solving the mystery of the place. There are more technical issues with classifying this game as a metroidvania, but when looking at the more conceptual side of defining the genre - it just doesn't have the metroidvania spirit. Let's start with the fact that Phoenotopia Awakening is barely a metroidvania. And I liked this game well enough to write a long post criticizing it. The thing with this game is that there aren't many people talking about it, and those who do often ignore many flaws and drawbacks, let alone describe the entire game's structure in detail. Some people on this sub and outside of it were praising it, some even calling it their game of the year - and of course the praise was probably coming from the vocal minority, but I expected the game to be at least decent. So Phoenotopia Awakening has lately released on Steam and I've been playing a lot of it for the past two weeks. Also spoilers for the names of areas and bosses. And everything was mixed and pseudo-mastered using Reaper.Warning: long post ahead. Most sounds were generated "in-the-box", but a few songs feature recorded acoustic/electric guitar and violin. And a bunch of piano melodic lines and rhythms that permeate 90% of the soundtrack just because pianos are great. The music itself is a mix of styles, from melancholic solo piano to heavy rocking battle themes, from orchestral adventuring to otherworldly synthscapes, with varying ratios of acoustic/electronic elements. Flash forward a few years: my friend quit his job to become a full-time solo game dev and I started working on these songs during my free evenings. Sure, why not? I was thinking nothing would come of it. It all started many years ago in my college days when my roommate, who had always dreamed of creating video games, joked with me about becoming a game dev duo he'd make the game, I'd make the music. Phoenotopia Awakening official site: Īnd for nostalgia's sake, the soundtrack for the old Flash game (including songs from previous co-composer Raoul Hamilton) can be found here: /album/phoenotopia-ost ![]() ![]() Soundtrack for Phoenotopia Awakening, a 2D Zelda-like puzzle action retro pixel platformer -insert-more-buzzwords.
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