Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Jan 6, 2023

  👍
• WurmHyperon

  Jul 19, 2023

  I had hoped to find a Metroidvania here in a similar style to Metroid or Axiom Verge and it sort of is that. I like the graphics and some of the upgrades so far, especially the hookshot where well done. However overall I found this game too often frustrating and not in a "I'll get better and then it's more fun" kind of way. Here are a couple of my biggest problems with the game: True to the metroidvania genre there are certain items you need to progress into new areas. However often times an area will look like it will open up with one item only to require another in the next room so that you are left wandering the map again. This kind of piecemeal progress means even more backtracking than in other metroidvanias and makes the whole experience a bit of a slog. A design decision that I found really weird is the use of one way blocks in a lot of places that mean you can easily travel in one direction but have to take a long way around in the other. Some of these blocks are not even distinguishable as one way blocks until it is to late and the player has fallen through. This kind of gotcha moment is annoying and feels like a weird punishment for not reading the developers thoughts. Other reviews mentioned the map wide changes some actions cause that are often not communicated beforehand and for me also take away from the sense of progression through new items that is integral to Metroidvanias since you never know if a blocked passage will at some point just open up or if there is an item that will let you pass through. Another big gripe I have with this game are the punishingly difficult jumping puzzles where you have to backtrack through big parts of the current biome in order to retry them. The puzzles themselves are often interesting and well thoughtout. knowing however that one wrong button press means you have to trudge through the same level again fills them with a weird sense of dread that I really don't need in a game. Combine this with some bulletspongy enemies that are very hard to fight without loosing hp and the fact that oftentimes after finding an item(and probably defeating a boss and loosing health in the process) you have to drag yourself through parts of the level again to get to the next save point or loose the progress you just made and this game is just too punishing and dismissive of my time for me. This last part might be somewhat mitigated by playing on easy mode however. There are people who will tremendously enjoy this game. There are interesting enemies and especially bosses and the traversal can be fun and rewarding but there are just too many game design decisions here that actively punish players for failing in order for me to recomend it. I will definitely have a look at Environmental Station Alpha 2 if and when it comes out but for now I'm done with this game. TLDR: Good and deep Metroidvania that is made unplayable for me by not only difficult but actively punishing passages that will cost you progress in unfair ways.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 23, 2015

  As an avid fan of Metroid, I got wind of this game just today. Yes the release day. And let me tell you, ESA is a wonderful experience to play! The simplistic pixelated graphics, the soundtrack, the gameplay.. all of it. What really gets me is ESA really sets the atmosphere very well, just like Super Metroid. Even the Controls are spot on with a 360 controller (even if the D-Pad isnt the best, it still plays very well, so you cant blame the game on movement, you have to blame yourself) Item collecting is very rewarding, boss battles are tough yet fair, everything so far with 3 hours in feels.. Right. Very right, and well done. Highly reccomend this title to anyone who loves Metroidvanias, or really good 2D platform adventure games. Honestly will be buying this for friends down the road too for them to experience it. TL;DR - ESA is a love letter to the Metroid Series, and goes to show that this style of games, are not dead. PS. I really hope they release the Soundtrack to this game, its very soothing to listen to.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 24, 2015

  One of the greatest, immersive metroidvanias ever, created by the Baba Is You developer

  ＋ Superb soundtrack; atmospheric, varied and fitting to the areas. ＋ Great map design, pacing, tricky and unique exploration. ＋ Seemingly intentional(?) sequence breaks possible which makes for interesting replayability, playstyles and routes. Surreal, cryptic end-game secrets, secret bosses and lore. Max completion percentage is 200%. ＋ Surprisingly addicting. Many times you'll find yourself go "Let me just check out this other room/area before Save/Quit." ＋ Even difficulty, not too hard and not too easy. If you have past experience with speedruns/low% runs/sequence breaking in other metroidvanias those skills will surely help you out. ＋ Overall fun and memorable bosses. ＋ Great placement of save points and teleports. － Somewhat clunky combat mechanics but improves the more upgrades you get. － No real incentive to go out of your way to kill enemies as they don't drop anything or serve any other purpose than to damage you. － While not an issue for me the graphics are very minimalistic, but I'm sure the game will manage to draw in and immerse most people who might think it's too minimalistic. － You need to manually take your screenshots (i.e. using Shadowplay or Print Screen) and upload them using Steascree or other methods because the Steam Overlay is disabled due to rendering issues appearing that they were unable to fix. Note: If you have an issue with your controller use this fix in the game options menu: https://steamcommunity.com/app/350070/discussions/0/611704730314912426/#c485623406942344906
• gamedeal user

  Apr 26, 2015

  buy this game if you like: -metroid -exploring -challenge -really crazy puzzles/riddles don't buy this game if you don't like: -dying -getting lost -cryptic (but solvable) riddles
• gamedeal user

  Sep 3, 2015

  Honestly, this one was a borderline call from me to recommend. On the plus side, it's pretty much Metroid. "Spiritual successor" is an apt description. Metroid 1 sensibilities, but with a lot of the abilities and puzzle cleverness of Super Metroid. It's really good, and when it's fun it's fun. But this game is HARD. Maybe I'm a sissy, I never got into Dark Souls, but this thing is crazy hard. Like "neighbors think I have Tourettes" hard, "Smash a controller like it's 1997" hard. It's so hard I almost want to downvote it, because it's "almost feels like a personal insult" hard. This is not the cushy Super Nintendo style Level->Save->Boss->Save progression. There are multiple bosses in every level, and rarely is there a save point directly in front or directly after it. Right now I'm at the 2nd boss of the Temple level, and I can't even reach the boss with 50% of my health. I haven't seen a life tank or powerup for 3 or 4 bosses. Not mini-bosses, legit bosses. So there you have it. Recommended if you like getting your face smashed in old-school.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 27, 2015

  This is pretty much your best bet if you're searching for a metriodvania game on Steam as of this review... 9/10 Just a moment of your time, if I may: Steam is filled to BURSTING with absolute garbage! I've been through nearly 5000 games on my recomendations queue, and I've only been barely interested enough in 200 of them to put on my wishlist. If you're like me, and completely jaded by misleading tags, lack of gameplay in trailers, early access games that have been abandoned, ( A flood of RPGMaker, visual novels, poorly drawn anime dating sim, choose your own destiny, point and click, simulation, "survival horror", etc.) games that you are unable to filter out!!! (seriously steam, why the **** can't I filter this trash out?!)... Then your poor brain deserves this. **Edit: Dear LORD of ALL that is HOLY and good in the universe, they've added a filter to the recommendations queue!! Thank you Lord Gaben! The point is, this game is a deep breath of fresh air in an ocean of complete excrement. +tight controls +FULL controller support, even allowing you to use the D-pad or the left thumb stick for movement. So I don't understand the "Partial controller support" on the game's features. (And you bet your *** I'm using the XBox One Controller's D-Pad) +rewarding discoveries +brilliant and appropriate music +awesome boss battles +extended end game content -there aren't enough talented people making games for Steam Buy it at FULL price, because it's already being sold short!
• gamedeal user

  Dec 21, 2015

  I don't generally recommend things in a public place, because it seems a little pointless, but I hope this helps someone make a decision. I've played every 2D Metroid, I've dabbled in more recent Castlevanias, I've done a lot of platformers. ESA managed to hold my attention for over 75 hours of exploration, trying somewhat challenging things, and more exploration. This is Hempuli's first commercial release to my knowledge, but he spent about 3 years tinkering with this game and trying to make it better. This is a better-designed metroidvania than Super Metroid was. There's no arbitrarily huge amount of health that you need to recover by grinding off of little enemies spawning out of pipes. You find a save, you get your health back, you fan out in multiple directions and see if you can find anything. The only real negative I can think of when it comes to ESA's exploration is that you don't find some little missile pack buried in each room, stuffed in a wall. You don't get that momentary gratification and pointless increase to the capacity of a weapon you'll never use. Instead, when you find some health or a bonus item, you feel massively more rewarded. That's not for everyone, but it's certainly for me. I see a lot of complaints about ESA stemming from its difficulty. "This boss has too many phases", "I don't have enough health", "I don't know where to go", all that kind of deal. The boss pacing definitely feels off in a couple of places. Some of the earlier bosses are decidedly more challenging than later ones feel at the time. The reason this doesn't bother me is because each boss actually feels very unique. Each boss has its own mechanics and feels complex in its own way, aside from a couple which are designed to teach you basic mechanics and one that acts as an item progression gate. Health, and dying a lot, are also not issues. There's an easy mode available directly from the start if you can't progress on normal, and it increases your maximum health, lowers enemy damage, and starts you with more maximum health. ESA also does a great job of directing you to where you need to be if you interact with terminals you find. Similar to Zero Mission, ESA will explain where you need to go through highlighting the target square on your map for you, which continues for quite a long time to allow you to continue progressing and exploring on the way to your destinations. You can also get around the game much faster than it initially seems due to the eventual introduction of a quick travel mechanic, eliminating a lot of pointless backtracking. Save points are generally positioned well and are used to prepare you for a boss so that you have a minimal run to get back to a boss. There are very few exceptions to this. The amount of optional content in ESA is also very impressive. There are secrets hidden everywhere, optional upgrades you can find, and with the introduction of a recent patch an entirely new area to explore. On top of this, once you've beaten the main game and reached an ending, you may have some questions about things you have found in the past that seem to have had no effect. This is where your postgame starts, and there are plenty of clues about how to progress postgame that can be found simply by continuing to investigate each unfilled square on your map. The secrets of ESA are not like a missile expansion hunt you would experience in a Metroid game. They are targeted and explained if you look carefully. There are only a scarce few entirely self-contained bonus rooms having little to no indication of their existence; almost all the things you want to find have a directing point somewhere. The postgame secrets are handled in an entirely different way than the traditional metroidvania style and require a different mindset to continue delving into each step in the chain of hidden information, which is a wonderful changeup so late into the game. The soundtrack was also handled very well. Every track fits into the area it belongs in and helps set the mood particularly well. The instrumentation used in ESA's soundtrack really goes well with the style of game and manages to call up memories of old SNES titles while not being some shameless ripoff. There wasn't a single instance where I felt "Oh, this track is obviously inspired by another game". My single complaint with ESA's soundtrack is the lack of variance in boss music. There's one track used for almost every boss in the game, and it became noticeable after a while. I definitely would have appreciated a bit of variance in the boss music, even if it was just one extra track on some bosses. Luckily, this isn't a huge issue, because most bosses are intense enough or go down quick enough once you know their patterns that the music doesn't feel repetitive. The graphics are the only point where it starts to break down for me a little. For the most part, ESA functions visually, but there were definitely times where I felt that the player character was blending into the background a bit too much. The low-pixel style also impacted how enemies and environments appeared, and more than once I was a bit confused as to what I was looking at until I took a second to inspect it. This isn't a major issue, but I would personally have appreciated more pixel density for ESA so that I could better interpret what was going on in each area. It's easy enough to tell what you're looking at in 95% of the game, but that other 5% is what I wish had more to it. That said, each area in ESA is quite visually distinct and the environments never felt samey or repetitive. Each room, even, is visually memorable, which is pretty impressive. Hempuli's put a lot of time into making ESA great. Any time a bug has come up, it's been fixed as soon as possible. There's still a persistent issue with some people running the Mac version where the game runs at decreased speed or lags, but from what I understand this might be fixed soon with a change in the Wine/Wineskin wrapper and is a result of a recent Mac OS update. Linux, unfortunately, does not jive with Multimedia Fusion. At the time of this review, your best bet is going to be playing this on Windows or using a dual-boot (which I guess people might have anyway because of Linux?), and the Mac version may be improved pretty soon to have few or no issues. There's one issue in particular where the Mac version will not support a controller natively, but using Joy2Key or any other program you like is a very quick workaround for this, and the keyboard controls function totally fine on their own. As far as the content of the game itself goes, bugs that have been reported to be negative for people have been ironed out pretty quickly, and nothing currently stands out as being broken. This is a game which has been examined and improved upon consistently since its release, and I really can't recommend it enough. Hempuli knocked it out of the park and has done all that was required of him as a dev, plus a free update with an entirely new area and its own secrets. Some people seem put off by ESA because of how it looks and from the apparently intimidating difficulty, but I promise that even a little patience goes a long way. I hope those who pick this up decide to keep at it even if a boss initially feels impossible or exploration feels initially unrewarding, because it is ultimately worth it.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 23, 2017

  I feel bad for not recommending this game, but I just didn't have as much fun with it as I wanted. Metroidvania is my favorite genre, and after having played Ori and the Blind forest and Axiom Verge this month, my thirst for them still was not satiated. Up next on my list was ESA, so I fired it up and had at it. At first, I was really thrown off by the graphics. Text is really hard to read (W and H look almost identical) and nothing has much detail. As I went on though, I started forgiving the graphics. They're still not what I would call good though, but it's the style the developer wanted. Combat is a bit strange. Your gun shoots a tiny little beam that almost acts more like stabbing with a long sword, and there are a total of three gun upgrades, one of which is at the very end of the game, and another is very well hidden and you will likely miss it until, again, the end of the game. The other one sits at roughly the halfway point, so for the majority of the game, you feel very weak and never upgrade your combat prowress. Where this game falls apart for me though is with the level design. Like any Metroidvania, you gain new skills that open up new pathways for you. Unlike good Metroidvanias though, ESA has some very flawed thinking. Usually, when you reach a dead end and a new powerup, the game tells you where to go next for the next upgrade. Being the explorer I am though, I like to make my own path. I just got the blue block destroying upgrade, and I remember some blue blocks on another path. I go that way, destroy the blue blocks, and on the other side is... red blocks. Great, I don't have the red block destroying upgrade yet. It works that way every time. You get a new upgrade, want to use it elsewhere, only to find out that going that way is entirely pointless and unrewarding. It makes the game feel much more linear than it should be. The game does open up a lot at the very end, but that's another thing I don't like about this game. This game has a huge postgame. The first ending you get is very underwhelming. It actually has multiple stages. First you collect some extremely hard to find disks, then you get the second ending. Then you're supposed to find four even harder to find pillars to kill a new boss. Then you're suposed to fight off some new enemies and collect three orbs (they're easy to get, except one you're supposed to know that numbers mean map coordinates. I didn't know they existed until I looked). Then you're supposed to DECRYPT AN ALIEN CIPHER, FIND A HIDDEN AREA, SOLVE 14 RIDDLES SCATTERED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, AND TRAVERSE A CONFUSING MAZE. Once I got to this part, I said screw it. I was already using a guide at this point because of the disks, and I wondered why I was bothering. I'm pretty sure there's even more postgame after all of that, but I seriously couldn't care less. So, to summarize, ugly art style, poor level design, poor progression of powerups, and a very pretentious postgame that essentialy requires a guide for anybody that's not into cryptic riddles or deciphering a made up language. I'm not saying the game is terrible though. These are just the things I hated about the game. I obviously liked the game enough to get this far, but there was too much disappointing in the game to recommend it to others. There are so many other games like this now, and this one did not bring me anywhere near the satisfaction the other ones have.
• gamedeal user

  May 8, 2017

  There's some good stuff to be found in Environmental Station Alpha, but unfortunately the game ended up losing my interest a few hours in. Despite ticking many of the right Metroidvania boxes, it was mostly the smaller nuances of the moment to moment gameplay that ended up turning me off. First of all there's the art design. I'm not personally a big fan of pixel art once it starts getting too low-fi, but ESA looks pretty good regardless. I think the visual style of the game nails the ultra-retro vibe quite well. The problem comes with how this ties into gameplay. ESA doesn't do a great job of clearly deliniating different elements of the game world from one another, partially because of the lack of detail, but partially because the art direction mixes many similar shades together to the point where things that should pop out just don't. Platforms you can stand on, foreground vs background elements, and even some enemies suffer from this problem. It isn't a gamebreaker, but I found myself running into enemies I thought were background elements and falling through blocks I assumed were solid more times than I consider acceptable in a game like this. Then there's the handling of progression and exploration. Most well designed Metroidvanias reward players who remember the locations of locked doors or inaccessible paths once they obtain the upgrade required to bypass them. Generally speaking, even if these pathways require multiple upgrades to navigate, you gate them off with the most difficult to obtain one first. That way the player is always rewarded for remembering the location and returning with the required powerup. ESA, by comparison, has several instances in which backtracking across the map mid way through the game only allows you to progress one or two screens further than last time, only to plant another progression blocker in front of you that requires something else to bypass. Certain elements of exploration and backtracking are punished in this regard rather than incentivised, with no way for the player to know that they should've waited to obtain more upgrades before coming back. The controls and moment to moment gameplay in ESA are more or less good, but certainly not great. Double jumping, swinging, and shooting underwater after getting a certain upgrade can all feel pretty awkward and fiddly to execute at times. It certainly doesn't have the fluid, buttery smooth gameplay that you want out of a movement-heavy platformer, but it's not terrible either. I will commend the bosses for being very well designed around the game's control scheme, and overall I found them to be the most enjoyable part of the experience up to a point. The same can't necessarily be said for the regular enemies, however, with some of them being so bad as to simply charge at you and then stand inside your sprite until you shoot down at the floor to kill them. The adversaries with more fun movement and AI patterns are almost wholesale clones of Metroid enemies, and their stage placement sometimes feels haphazard as opposed to carefully considered. What ultimately made me decide to put the game down was the age-old problem that often kills my motivation to carry on with a title: the feeling that it was wasting my time. There were a few minor instances of this earlier on when failing jumps required me to backtrack across a screen or two largely devoid of challenge to reattempt them, but upon getting to an (otherwise very fun and memorable) boss that required me to go through two phases before getting to the part that was giving me trouble -- the first of which required me to sit around waiting until the boss revealed its weak point -- I decided I'd put enough time into ESA. I adore a good challenge, but I have little patience for games that force me to sit, wait, and repeatedly progress through trivial challenges before being allowed to reattempt the fun part. It's a shame, because up until that point I'd been happy to press on with the game on the strength of the boss battles alone. Overall, I'd give ESA a mixed recommendation if I could. It captures the retro style it's going for very well despite the issues with visual clarity. The music is fitting, the art is neat, and as far as Metroid clones go this one does a similarly good job as Axiom Verge at evoking the same kind of amtosphere. The bosses -- time-wasting issues aside -- are incredibly good, with fun designs and interesting mechanics that challenge you to master their patterns and respond appropriately. Unfortunately it just has a lot of rough edges, lacking the tightness of a truly good Metroidvania both in terms of its controls and level design. I'll admit that I probably have higher standards than most when it comes to the genre, so take that into consideration when evaluating the helpfulness of this review, but compared to many of the Metroidvanias released within the last few years ESA just didn't hit the mark for me. It's almost there, but not quite.