Played through Vernal Edge, a metroidvania with smaller levels you can tackle in any order, like Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. While the exploration and combat elements aren't particular standouts, the platforming and movement are consistently excellent throughout. Almost like tossing Cappy in Mario Odyssey, tons of your moves chain together to allow you to access areas that initially seem far out of reach, and treasure is always well-placed to reward players who experiment with their many options. Constantly asking myself "hey can I go up there?" and finding that yes, you totally can, was a real joy.
I also really appreciated the game's efforts to make its movement/speed tech feel approachable for non-speedrunners like myself. Unlike backwards long jumps or mockballs or obscure out of bounds glitches, the core concept behind the tech is super easy to understand and execute: you just divekick straight down into any slope to get zooming. And once you pick up the basics, you start noticing how the level design is constantly offering up little opportunities for you to gain speed and chart a more elegant line through each screen. It's entirely optional, but the low stakes and fantastically zippy payoff do a great job of encouraging constant experimentation, and even when you're not powersliding it's still super fun just to imagine the other paths you could've taken through the levels. And then later on you learn to activate the same boost by wavedashing into flat terrain, expanding the possibilities even further!
Basic fights start to drag a bit in the back half, but the game smartly wraps up before it overstays its welcome and is bolstered by a string of great boss fights that carry it through to the end. All in all, it's an impressive debut for the developer, Hello Penguin Team, and I'm excited to see whatever they cook up next!
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