The Prisoning: Fletcher’s Quest

This 3 hour microvania plays alright when comparing with other VERY short microvanias like Tiny Dangerous Dungeons, Kalinur, 100 Pumpkins 2, Omnigon, SJ-19 Learns to Love etc.
It's very expensive for such a short experience and certainly dissapointing if you're expecting a game of the same scope and calibre as Alwa's Legacy.
The metroidvania aspect is very light and not very sprawling or backtrack-ish: there is occasionally a fork in the road and 4 times out of 5 one way is just a 1 room dead end with a temporary health pickup. Many rooms can also just be run+jumped through without needing to dispatch the enemies.
The game is surprisingly gay, as in gay characters, gay orgies etc. The game is humerous and does have some flair to moments of it, where the gameplay changes up or does something funny to catch you off guard.
You die in 2 hits, but can find health pickups to replenish yourself. Gameplay = you go down a corridor through 7 rooms, reach a save+warp point. repeat. repeat. repeat. You have a very basic map but it serves its purpose.
I didn't replay the game to experience the procedural generation, but it sounds like it is doing what Chasm did, where the layout randomizes each time. This won't lead to anything too exciting though: it's not like there are a tonne of abilities in the game and the rooms are unmemorable enough that I imagine I'd hardly notice. The replayability scope is certainly very limited and can't lead to a real new adventure each time in the way that games like A Robot Named Fight or Weapon Hacker do.
So while dissapointing and expensive for what it is, it rates fairly well on my 'metroidvanias that are 3.5 hours or less Tier List (which I'll post below)' but compared to actual full fledged metroidvanias everything on that list could harshly be written off as shovelware.
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My most/least liked Microvanias/Microvania-likes (0-3 hour length metroidvanias):
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-Not an objective list, purely how much I enjoyed the games-
Excellent: Tiny Dangerous Dungeons Remake |
Very Good: Kalinur | 100 Pumpkins 2 |
Good: Omnigon | SJ-19 learns to Love | Paradox Vector³ | The Prisoning: Fletcher’s Quest | Hargrave | Bread Adventure |
Okay: Ascent DX | Realm of I^ | Cosmos Bit | Zapling Bygone | Roots of the Mind | Janosik* | Trash Quest | Super Skelemania | Bobo Robot | Necrosphere64 | Super Win the Game | Gears of Dissent³ |
Meh: Cosmos: Stella Returns | Prehistoric Gal | VonGarland Castle | Quarion | Escape Zolstar | Dispersio 2 | Hollow Floor | Aldoria | You Have to Win the Game | Psycron | Aqua Boy* | Absence of Light | Grizzland | A Song in Elyel Nalore | Awita | An Untitled Story |
Liked some things but ultimately did not enjoy: Sun Wukong Vs Robot* | Ex Vitro* | Count Pumpcula* | Oliver’s Adventures in FairyLand | Tomomi* | Nakawak | Maytroid* | Dark Swords Firelink* | Necrosphere | Observance of Homeland | Little Droid* | Jackroid* | Tiny Dangerous Dungeons | Whirlwind Magician |
Didn’t like: | Robot wants it all | Legend of Thabor | Fourmiworld | A Lenda De Niteroi | Spooky Ghosts Dot Com | Rocketron | Twinland^ | Pentacore | Chakana* | Mini Ghost | Xeodrifter | Simona’s Requiem* | Legends of the Universe: Cosmic Bounty* | Xenosis* | Moonlaw* | Darxanadon | Pigbook* | Dimensional Animals* | Dark Throne* | Alchemists Castle* |
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^ = Mouse & Keyboard are STRONGLY advised.
* = Very raw indie or contains some jank or lack of polish.
­³ = Not a 2D sidescroller. A 3D or top-down perspective.
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I finished it on the Switch, the game's pretty good and it feels like the devs did almost everything they wanted to do with the game. F#@%$ that last boss though LOL.
By the way, I totally forgot that I had the double Jump during the Shark boss for some reason, a boss that wasn't even that hard and was actually pretty fun... After I remembered why I couldn't miss a very specific attack.
It would've been nice to have a real last boss where you need to use every single skill that you have unlocked though... Unless there is one for those who got all the Vinyl (Which I didn't get) and I missed it.
Thank you!

Fun, Engaging, Imaginative experience. An approachable and enjoyable game you won't regret purchasing or want to put down once you do!

Game is really challenges your platforming skills, your movement and most of all...... you patience. VERY Fun game Feels and move good. Funny dialogues and weird maps makes the game like a fever dream.

A nice, quick game with great graphics and soundtrack.
The first main section can feel repetitive, but once you unlock your first ability, everything clicks into place and the gameplay opens up. The story is humorous, though the humor may border on crude a few times (nothing beyond South Park levels, though).
There are a few rough edges that may be ironed out over time. Currently, there’s no option to rebind keys, and when you pick up a new ability, there’s no on-screen prompt (besides the dialogue). There's aren't a lot of enemy and traps types currently, but this may expand.
You only have up to two hit points at a time (one with the hat and one without). This usually works okay since hats are often placed in side rooms, but it does make bosses with large health pools feel damage-spongy by comparison.
The cutscenes and cinematics are well done. The highlight for me was fighting a possessed flying car while piloting a UFO.

Croteam isn't the only development company that had a tonal shift between its games. A Void Hope was a moody and atmospheric platformer, while The Prisoning: Fletcher's Quest is a very goofy platformer.
I think the humor is pretty decent, it did get some laughs out of me. A lot of self-aware, fourth wall or absurd humor, and I like that kind of stuff. There is some crude and sexual humor, you start with a butt-naked Fletcher complete with a tiny pixel pingas. Nothing too crazy, just goofy fun.
What about the gameplay itself? Well... it's a simple platformer with some challenge. The game is advertised as "metroidvania-lite", and I think even that is generous. You get power-ups, but not much in terms of optional content or non-linearity, the optional content boils down to music track discs and optional rooms that have a hat that acts as a health pick-up. Personally, I think this is a linear platformer with a light exploration element.
The platforming itself is pretty simple, and kinda challenging. You can shoot enemies and jump. One of the power-ups is a double jump, which aids the platforming greatly. Later on you also get a ground slide, similar to Mega Man games, which gives you temporary invincibility, and can be used to jump further if you time it right, but that trick is not required. Even later you get a butt stomp, which is a ground pound that breaks certain blocks and kills enemies. Pretty basic stuff.
The bosses are a decent challenge, I think they are fun and pretty well made, but I do have a couple of complaints. The first boss has you jump in-between its parts, and after you get it to half health, the bottom will be destroyed, and the top will start floating up and down so you can actually hit it. However, if you're jumping in-between bits as you're supposed to and transition, the top part will float down and hit you, which is rather crappy. The second boss, I wish there was a way to skip its intro animation. The absurdly long health bar that weaves around is funny the first time, but not so much after. Unless there was a way on keyboard that I didn't find. Other than that, I enjoyed them, there are patterns to learn. The final boss has a pretty unique gimmick, essentially an autoscroller where you flip your direction with each jump, and you have to be facing forward to shoot the boss. I thought that was rather creative.
The game is pretty short. I beat it in under three hours, and there is an achievement to beat it under two hours, referencing Steam refunding. Aside from speedrunning, there's not much replay value. The game randomizes rooms each "session", meaning if you reload the save file, they will change. Neat, but nothing else. There is a downside, in that it is possible to get the same room(s) after you got through them later, after you leave the game, which is a part of why I'm not particularly impressed.
I wish there was a control remapping, that should be a standard nowdays. The justification I heard in the official discord server is that they didn't have budget for that, which to me sounds like an excuse not to implement such a basic feature. There must be lots of resources for Unity for this out there. Let's not forget that control remapping is also an accessibility feature in a way. I usually play platformers with arrow keys, but the action buttons are J, K, L and Space. Using WASD isn't the worst thing in the world, I got used to it, but still... A Void Hope also lacked that, so take that as you will.
Overall, I did enjoy The Prisoning: Fletcher's Quest. It's pretty simple, but there's little wrong with it. The platforming feels nice enough, it's a polished enough game, save for a few small annoyances, there's some nice challenge to be had. The visuals are decent, and the there is some music I like. I did enjoy the humor. A decent enough game that I can recommend.

It's a nice challenging game with fun and interesting characters.