Pros: Cool aesthetic, and very nice character design. Interesting attempt at a time mechanic, although it seems a bit convoluted to the point I didn't fully understand it even after the tutorial. Were they going for something like Majora's Mask? Cons: Why no voice acting? I get other comments that it's a low price point game but they couldn't even record a few "oof"s and "uh-huh"'s for the main character? They had the budget for really pretty artwork and sharp looking scenery but nothing for sound effects? It's 2026, you can even use AI for that. Parry mechanic is awful, enemies flash before an attack but it doesn't correspond to the parry window - so just remove the flash entirely then. Attacks feel sluggish in an unsatisfying way, in contrast to Bloodstained for example which feels snappy and powerful. Even on normal mode the umbrella stand mob can kill you in three hits, and again, I can die to anything because of either my attack animation blocks the ability to parry on time, or being unable to hit the inconsistent parry window. The instant-death electrical parkour areas, yikes... if you abolutely have to put those in (please just don't), then you need to first tighten up the control lag and player hitbox. And then when you die and get sent back to the hourglass, low-tier mobs respawn and physically block the way so you have to deal with a potential cheap parry window death while you're backtracking. And the level design... well it's metroidvania in the most literal sense but without a lot of creativity. I think it has a lot of potential but they just stopped short with a lot of ideas still half-baked and still feels unfinished without any voice acting or detailed sound effects. I'd love to see the devs take the feedback from players because the groundwork is there for a good game, almost where I'd give it a positive review but at this point the gameplay just feels like work instead of entertainment.

There should be a new Category called Metroid-Born. Because this game has nothing Castlevania about it. This game is Metroid but with Soulsborn Punishing Difficulty, and its Not fun unless your into that sorta shit! Can I find a Metroidvania game that not FFKKING Hallow knight / Silk Song / Blasphemous! These are Not Metroidvanias, there Metroid-Borns!~

Attractive women character waifu´s and solid gameplay. *throws money at devs* (edit: Look western developers how easy it is to separate me from my money)

A game like this shouldn't be dropping as many dash inputs as frequently as this game does. also combat is mind numbing, mash until they're purple.

i had high hopes for this game but it just didnt scratch that itch. id rather play nine sols again. unfortunate :( the movement was okay. the combat seemed cool in the trailer, i wouldnt say its bad but it didnt flow how i was hoping. maybe ill give the game another shot in the future but for now i dont think its for me.

7.5/10 The gameplay is really solid, but it’s dragged down by the excessive sexualization of nearly every character. Pros Gameplay Art style Combat Story Cons Parkour Quest hints Overly sexualized character designs from the developers

the final boss needed for the true ending somehow harder than Lost Lace Edit: Platforming in the temple is such pain. I give up

I'm enjoying the game so far, the visuals are beautiful and the mechanics seem satisfying. The movement is very fluid and the parry window is great. The downward attack could keep us in the air just like a game I think you know

I had a massive issue that forced me to start the game over after two hours of play when I went between playing on my desktop and Steam Deck. I played on PC at first, then tried to play in on Deck but it crashed, and when I played again on desktop, the character was in the same place I'd left her, but had no equipment or upgrades. I had acquired the Whip Hammer, Double Jump, Dash/Slide and Wall Jump, and I was in a place that was inaccessible without those abilities. I couldn't get in or out, even after dying and going back to the last major save point, thus I was forced to start the entire game over. I frequently switch between desktop and Steam Deck and this is the first game I've played that made me cautious about doing that. The game itself is pretty great. Combat is weighty and skill based, the visuals are good...generally it would be an easy recommend. I liked the game enough that I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and give it another try. But the error repeated. I can't recommend this game if you intend to play on both desktop and Steam Deck. It may work fine if you stick to one or the other, but in my experience the game's save data will break if you try to play across both or via cloud saves.

Recommended if you: - Love metroidvania - Love challenging platformer - Love satisfying attack combo - Weebs - Love boobs, ass, and thicc thighs And most importantly: Love cute and funny girls UOOOOH😭😭😭/10, recommended

If you're a gay leftist that's only going to buy this game to complain about the character design. Then do us all a favor and just fuck off. Your opinion and input isn't valued...so just go away, leave. Go back to jerking-off to the idea of replacing your family member with minorities becuase you've got some creepy "Dark Skin" fetish. For everyone else, game is pretty good.

Stolen Tera Online Elin Reaper model. Need to wait for a map to complete the game. As none of the modchips seem to do what they are suppose to.

This is my initial impressions for those who are on the fence... Game fun. Buy game. Essentially, if you are a fan of the castlevania, metroidvania, etc style of gameplay, this is doing it pretty well. There are definitely some things I have no enjoyed though. First of all, I am playing on the standard difficulty, and it is definitely a bit harder than the standard difficulty for most of these style of games. Not really an issue, but when the difficulty comes from getting locked into your regular attack combo and unable to parry or dash out quick enough.... it feels tedious. The boss/mini-boss battles that you come against allow you to get hit once or twice before you die, and you pretty much have an infinite amount of healing, but with that being said, the balance around being able to heal in time on certain fights seems strange. With this being said, I have died maybe 4 or 5 times in the hour and some change that I have played it, and it doesn't feel too overwhelming so far. Game scores: Combat - 7/10 graphics - 9.5/10 music - 9/10 art style - 9.5/10 story - ?/10 ...... I have no idea what is going on at this point in time.,.... I am vying forsome kind of power at the school and need people to vote for me.... so we are basically running around beating the crap out of people to get their votes.... idk. its weird but it might improve over time. I will update this as I feel it has changed while progressing through the game. Hope it helps!

Amazing game, not without flaws, but still, amazing. Length is about right for a metroidvania, doesn't overstay its welcome. Music was very hit or miss for me, art academy being my favorite biome BGM, with the last 2 major fights having the better boss music. Artstyle... Don't even get me started, games beautiful, characters are great (though I personally wish we got a bit more knowledge on some of em) effects on the skills are flashy but not over powering. Difficulty, unsure how to rate this one, I played on challenge, had some struggles on certain bosses, but overall felt about right. Now... Controls.. Don't get me wrong, the controls are solid, but for whatever reason, despite nearly everything feeling snappy and smooth, Dashing, for whatever reason this games dashs were such a hit or miss? like I don't even know how many times the game just decided "Nah you don't get to dash" I'd say it was a controller issue, but i never experienced issues with any other function of the game... End all, I got the Normal and True endings, and 100% map completion. Might do it again later on reality difficulty but that'll be later. Dev's if you read this, please make a DLC artbook for the character art, and CG's. Primarily for the character references... as I really want some clean references for art purposes. But I would also love some wallpapers.

I promise, this isn’t a thesis paper! When I first pick up this game, I did not expect it to deliver this well. The thematic of the story is well coherent. I was surprise when many design choices isn’t some sort of slap on and called it “metroidvania” and be done with. Most of the time, many games would fall into Hollow Knight syndrome. This, tamper everything from monster design, UI, etc. So, when I see this game, stand on their own uniqueness, I was a genuine delight. I won’t try to spoil into the story too much. And I’m glad that this game did not have level-up mechanic, otherwise I couldn’t have like it so much. I never play this game on normal difficulty. The combat is unique from the cast of Metroid genre. Though I argue the currency system that tied with healing is a bit, “forgiving”. If the developer plans to include another playable in a different perspective, I believe it’s best to change this mechanic. Playing on the harder difficulty, some elite monster room is even harder than bosses. Normally I would be too focus on parry-timing, often I would forget to use skills. These room on the harder difficulty require you to spam skills. Otherwise, the enemies would attack you all at the same time (props to developer for not being cheap and add an assist so that the enemy would only attack one at a time, it was an experience) the problem would be, some attacks are un-parryable. Though, I doubt all player would enjoy getting crushed so many times, I generally have high tolerant for game being hard. So, is this game easy? I can’t tell if you play on the normal difficulty, but beyond that, thing get spicy. On the topic unrelated to gameplay. 3D space looks amazing, UI isn’t anything crazy and the art for the interface seems to borrow some inspiration from you know gacha big-title. Personally, don’t mind that’s completely normal, and even then, I would encourage. Though on the graphical note, I absolutely hate all the option for AA (anti-alias.) I have choose to stick with FXAA, from experience with other title with AA, even some made from modder perform and look gorgeous. By no mean, I’m no expert on the matter, just sticking it out there. About fonts, I don’t know why they separate in-game readable font and character’s speech font, since the in-game readable have font design. While the character’s font is easy to read but it’s the blandest of all the choices you could make. Why so picky? It’s literally the medium that English-based audience will be reading through the entire game. As for chara-voice, currently it is non-exist. I have seen the developer have taking a consideration of adding some voices. I WHOLEHEARTEDLY ADVICE for developer to add SOME voices. It adds an immediate sense of persona of the character you are talking to. Without any mumbling at all, you could hardly guest their personality of some character. AND I believe adding the neutral language voice is the best choice, what do I mean? Meaning, all character mumble nonsenses but give context to their emotional that they convey. I personally found or rather some other people would find, adding specific language would break an immersion. While J-dubbed is norm, but I think standing neutral is best. There’s some character development I think needed to implement. Given the player character, Kotama, is a controlled character, she is somewhat lack in character. I believe it’s the conscious choice made by developer, for the ease of player’s perspective to fit into this game setting. But, since this game thematic ties heavily with time loop. Why not make the new game plus (etc.) that Kotoma have her own character development? I think that would add a nice flair. One last thing, a few cons I could think of. Playing on a controller is perhaps recommended? Because default keyboard layout is an absolute mess! I advise you to personalize the layout. One thing that occur to me throughout the game is, not remembering which keys do and do what. Many times, I miss press a key thinking it would do something else, worse is these complex key combinations is somewhat the finest of this games combat. So uh, might best go a little bit more easy next time. Also, on the hardest difficulty, can you please make the player respawn outside of train instead of inside (in general.) Reloading into train take more time than just spawning at the station normally would. Honestly, it was an unexpected gem for me. Many things this game has click well with me. Thoroughly, enjoy it a little too much. No bias. Nope. Not a slight bit.

Overall fun but I wish dying didn’t reset all progress between checkpoints. You lose all collectible and bosses will not be defeated anymore if you die to just a randomly enemy or terrain before reaching the next checkpoint. Gets old very fast. Compared to hollow knight where you go back to the last checkpoint but you keep collectables and bosses are still defeated. It’s a much needed QoL for these kind of games

Enjoyed most of what I played and was doing good up until Elaine. Had some struggles with other areas but got through them and have been having a good time but holy f*%# her second phase… way overturned on normal difficulty. Putting this down until she either gets nerfed or some mods/trainers come out. Not worth the frustration otherwise.

A catgirl on an educational pathway towards becoming more human...

"Kotama & Academy Citadel" is a great game which I had a LOT of fun with that has gone into my S-Tier for its chunky combat, decent exploration and platforming, and novel time-related plot and mechanics. The game features impactful combat with some challenge even on the Recommended difficulty. Parry is an option. Dodge is an option. Attacks are well-telegraphed throughout with nice obvious tells — though they did take some learning in a few cases. If you're expecting a breeze where you can just mash buttons and not have to pay attention to anything, then Story difficulty is likely to be your destination. (I do feel it is a misstep that you cannot lower the difficulty after starting a game file, however.) Controls were responsive and I had no issues with anything save for the way the Wall Jump worked in the pre-release build which has already been fixed for release. I played exclusively with a wired PS5 DualSense controller throughout and had no input lag or eaten commands save for a couple of places where I realised I pressed jump at the exact same moment as Kotama does her little edge hop. That's on me. I don't think I'd want that jump buffered. The platforming is rock solid, but with nothing massively standout to what you might have seen before in other metroidvania games, and this goes for the suite of MV powers as well, which are very functional but probably the least innovative part of the experience. It doesn't have the fluidity (or complexity) of "Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown", nor the weird and wacky MV powers of "Dragonloop" (another time-focused metroidvania that I recommend if you enjoyed this — though it isn't as polished). There IS a single, properly-challenging platforming section at endgame, but it isn't mandatory for getting the True Ending. And, if you struggle with the platforming aspects, on the Story and Recommended difficulties, there's an assist option you can enable to skip the harder stuff. (From what I can see, the devs might be considering adding this to the harder difficulties as well, but that does seem to contradict the point of having Challenging difficulties...?!) World-building is surprisingly deep, and the localisation for the lore logs and stuff is actually very well done for the most part (bar some slightly iffy sentence structure in places, but that is generally uncommon). The actual dialogue is ever-so-slightly more hit-and-miss in terms of its localisation, but is generally much better than normal for a localised game, and it distracted from the anime portraits which apparently are a big draw for certain people but I was just happy enough to ignore for the most part. The level design will probably be too "boxy" for some, but I think it fits the environments well — it's a man-made structure, not a natural environment. Each biome felt unique, had its own gimmicks, and at no point did I feel lost because rooms were always distinctive and the map system works great. (I'm not a big fan of the symbols used for the custom markers, but at least there ARE custom markers. You just might struggle to remember what you've used them to represent. It would be nice to see an implementation of the Memory Screenshot function from "Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown" or "Lone Fungus: Melody of Spores" here.) Graphics are clean, detailed, with no iffy textures that I noticed in the playthroughs I've done so far. While not the most extravagant I've see, it IS an anime game and I feel the style suited what they were going for well. I've seen some people complain about stiff animations, but in my 30+ hours I've not really noticed any. Music is chill and quite catchy (OST please?) — especially the main menu music, the catchy track played on the Arcadia, and the super snappy track that plays in the final areas. SFX are chunky, especially hit impacts which have nice reverb and sound visceral, accompanied by solid hit-stop and feedback. There is no voice acting. I didn't miss it. If they were to add the horrible voice spam that games like "Gal Guardians" has, it would immediately drop in rating in my eyes (unless it is made optional). I've seen some complaints of systems being poorly explained, but even in the pre-release version I played where some text was still in Chinese, I had zero issues figuring out any of the systems in the game, so unless the tutorials I got throughout are bugged and just didn't fire for people, I'm really surprised that this is a point of contention for some. Systems like the Temporal Coils and how they interacted with certain questlines seemed very straightforward to me, and are a novel part of the experience. They add a refreshing layer of slight complexity to an otherwise reasonably-straightforward world, and are one of the things that elevated the experience for me. My first 100% playthrough of the game (100% map completion, 100% votes, all achievements save for the Hard difficulty one) took just shy of 20 hours — taking my time to read most of the lore, dying a couple of times to some (most) of the bosses, and spending 58 minutes on the aforementioned endgame platforming section (which was even trickier with the pre-release version of the Wall Jump). I have a full review on YouTube where I cover most of this stuff in a more deep dive way.

Great merroidvania. Solid exploration, tough boss fights, movement is a lot of fun, combat solid. Loved it.

You get to cover your enemies in your fluids.

Waifu's + solid gameplay. Worth picking up

Have enjoyed way more than Hollow Knight thus far. Could use some polish on the characters visually, but the gameplay is really smooth

A video review can be watched here: https://youtu.be/FgY06XahYYI For those who don't want to watch the video: Playtime: 16 hours and 40 minutes Completion Rate: 98% Pros: - While the narrative will come off as fairly standard to people familiar with anime tropes, I have to admit that it worked really well within the context of the game’s metroidvania nature since it wove exploration and storytelling seamlessly by tying your very investigation of the titular academy to your overall purpose. - The academy itself lives up to its reputation as an uncanny school, with its biomes being few but quite diverse, significantly expansive and surprisingly lore-heavy. - There's an impressive number of secrets, with each separate biome being densely packed and ripe for discovery. - Whenever you move from one room to another, you will notice that a temporal coil (special collectible) will be removed from your inventory, resulting in the in-game time to progress by one hour. This internal clock is actually tied to the title’s quest system, with certain NPCs and events only being available before or after a certain time-slot, which effectively makes you think tactically about the way in which you will approach navigation of the map when it comes to specific tasks you wish to accomplish, in order to make sure you get the timing right! Said time progression happens once per door you pass through, and resets whenever you save at a main save point, thus allowing you to try again in case of failure, and you will want to try again if you wish to go for 100% since almost all of these tasks yield votes that increase your vote percentage, which you need to fill up as much as possible if you want to get the best ending! In all honesty, this system sounds way more complicated than it actually is, since all that will be required of you will be some basic observation of the map overview in order to determine the right path to follow by counting how many rooms you’ll have to pass through and deciding the ideal course by calculating which route will allow you to get to your goal before the given time limit, but I still felt like it added some welcome spice to quest completion. - Speaking about the map, I’m really glad to report that Kotama and Academy Citadel does a truly good job at making the overview efficient to a large extent. The map automatically marks any points of interest you come across, such as quest locations, memocards, NPCs and fast travel spots. You’re also provided with a total of fifty manual markers to place wherever you want, which I highly recommend you start doing from the get go since, even though most items and locations of importance are marked the moment you come across them, there are a few that don’t, so save yourself some trouble and be proactive about your future exploration of places you cannot access at the moment of first discovery. - I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Kotama and Academy Citadel has numerous acrobatic gauntlets to beat, and I say that because, at first glance, the game feels and, to be fair, largely is, combat oriented. Carmel academy actually boasts some truly challenging platforming segments that, at times, require a degree of creativity and outside the box thinking to beat. - Combat felt great across the board, and is definitely the game’s main event! On a basic level, you have a total of three weapons at your disposal, starting with an umbrella, which packs a good punch but is short ranged, before eventually getting a whip, which was my weapon of choice due to its combination of long range and decent damage output, and finally finding the twin blades, which are also short ranged but ridiculously fast, effectively turning you to a meat grinder. All three of them can be upgraded at a merchant in order to increase their damage levels as well as enhance them with special abilities which you can activate periodically in order to completely decimate your foes. Battle is further heightened by a damage buildup system. In essence, hitting enemies continuously as well as parrying their attacks eventually coats them in a purple liquid which you can then detonate with a powerful hit in order to not only deal a world of hurt, but also to leech health points from them. Leeching aside, healing can also be carried out by standing still and focusing for a few seconds, which leads to the recharging of your health bar at the cost of Luminite, your currency. This is actually the first time I’ve seen this healing system, which I thought was a stroke of genius since it kept currency relevant even after I had purchased everything from merchants, and didn’t tie me to any health vials or similar items that usually require save points or combat in order to replenish, thus affording me complete freedom to explore. Memocards are also of major importance to fighting. Equipping said accessories is carried out via a merchant, who initially offers limited space for them, that you can gradually increase in order to fit more so as to benefit as much as possible from the advantages they provide, which will absolutely come in handy when dealing with some of the most challenging enemies present here, namely, the bosses! - Incredibly fun, challenging but fair bosses! Cons: - Story-wise, when it came to automatic dialogue instances, they tended to disappear quite quickly, often before I had a chance to read the full sentence, so it would be a good idea to slow those down a bit. Also, there were a few situations where text segments had not been translated to English, both in terms of conversations as well as tutorials, though I will admit that I was still able to understand what was explained through context, so it didn’t bother me that much. - Following every major boss fight, I was treated to a placeholder image instead of the proper story art, but the subtitles still worked so I was able to deduce what was happening. - While the academy was interesting to explore, overall, the map design was quite boxy and not that imaginative, which made certain areas appear fairly generic and bland. - Platforming-wise, there was an issue with the dash ability which, at times, did not trigger for me even though I had pressed the appropriate button, thus sending me plunging to my doom. There was no rhyme or reason as to why that was happening, and it wasn’t connected to any dash cooldown mechanic since I tested it under the same circumstances numerous times in order to conclude that it is, indeed, an issue. I’ll admit it was more hit than miss, but when it missed it really hurt, especially during one of the game’s optional, and unreasonably challenging, platforming trials. In addition, there’s another, smaller issue connected to this aspect of the game, and that is the fact that the main character animations can come off as a bit choppy and abrupt at times, essentially lacking the fluidity necessary for seamless platforming traversal, which can make getting through these gauntlets an awkward endeavor at times. Finally, there’s a very important platforming move that is never actually explained to you, which I decided to call the slime slingshot. I eventually discovered said move by accident while trying to figure out how to access some seemingly inaccessible areas after I had gotten every single traversal skill available and, in case you also get stuck, this move is related to certain sections that have a thrust point right next to an iron gate obstacle, and to perform it you need to press, both, the thrust button as well as the buttons that turn you to a slime near simultaneously. - Some frame rate issues in a few areas. TL:DR: Kotama and Academy Citadel is an incredibly fun metroidvania that boasts some interesting ideas, though mostly plays things by the numbers, which is not a bad thing since it does so quite well! If you’re looking for a solid metroidvania to sink several hours into, this one will definitely do the trick! Final Grade: 7.5/10