Archvale

Honesty an amazing game, almost no complaints, such a breath of fresh air from the current gaming industry, lovley art, great gamplay and captivating story 10/10, also really cheap.

Archvale is perfect for the Steam Deck, the controls feel great and it’s easy to pick up and play. The game is nice and short, making it very satisfying to 100%. There’s a surprising amount of build variety without the difficulty ever becoming frustrating, and the fun, colourful art style ties it all together. A great, compact bullet hell experience.

extremely underrated, 100% the game on hard mode and I did not get bored of it a single time.

It was a fun and smooth experience. Handcrafted rooms were significantly better than random ones as the latter often just spam you with whatever biome has. There’s some variety in gear to create a build suited for your preferred playstyle but I’m not sure there’s a significant difference between weapons. You can freely swap things so there’s no commitment to a class or anything. You can be a “warrior” for the first half of the game and “mage” for the second half. Game has nice difficulty curve but you cannot get overpowered with some "broken build" so it’s more catching up with the game than getting ahead. There are optional challenges that will test your dexterity and they are really fun. Also each final dungeon has some dash related sections that were really creative and refreshed the gameplay a bit.
Not a fan of the graphics and music/sound but it’s rather personal preference than complaint.
Narrative is minimal but there’s not a bad idea for the main chain of events.
I think I would prefer it to be a bit shorter. That being said, I don't regret my time with it and I would gladly try the second part if it ever gets made.
Good to know (no spoilers):
- 10-11h to 100% the game, there are no missables.
- I recommend playing on normal. The game isn’t always fair and it becomes more challenging fast. Hard just double the damage and health of the enemies. No new patterns. You cannot change difficulty mid-game.
- Screen shake can be turned off

It's a fun game. But could be improved.
I don't understand why the ability to sell gear wasn't added to the game. You end up with a ton of gear to just delete repeatedly.
Aside from that, I enjoyed the game!

This game got me out of a gaming rut that had me scrolling my library for hours per day not knowing what to play, super fun, amazingly paced, cool weapons, pretty much if I were to ever make a game it would be a lot like this. Very, very solid.

I absolutely recommend this game to anybody curious-it scratches a very particular itch that I didn't even know I had! An easy comparison would be that this game is a lot like Enter The Gungeon, but scrap the rogulike elements in exchange for an exploration/kind of metroidvania style gameplay, It's hard to find experiences in the bullet-hell genre that deviate from the standard, but this game is quite fun if you're looking for a more story-based, action exploration experience.
Combat is simple but very well done. It's a twinstick bullet-hell with a pretty good difficulty balance (my playthrough of the game was done on normal, so take that with a grain of salt). The weapons felt decently unique, and it was always fun to uncover a new item in the overworld. Boss fights were decently challenging but very fun, and it felt good to weave in and out of the projectile mass constantly being thrown my way.
That being said, I do have a few complaints. Exploration got pretty repetitive in the mid to late game. I felt as though I wasn't quite being rewarded enough for exploring every room. Some routes led to dead ends with no upgrades or items, and it was a bit disappointing when this did occur. There are a decent spread of collectables to find, but I overall feel that there could have been some cooler, more unique upgrades that could be found in the overworld.
I also feel that the weapon upgrade system could have been a bit more fleshed out to allow players to use their personal favorite weapons. Many weapons were variations of a general archetype, but I found that I preferred the style of certain weapons to others, which was unfortunate because many of my less preferred weapons were strictly better than my favorites. Likewise, I feel that a greater effort could have been made to diversify the individual weapons. For example, giving flails vastly different swing speed, bows different projectile travel speed, beam attacks a much more variable size, etc.
I also felt as though melee weapons were generally underpowered. It is integral that you're able to react to enemy projectiles because of the bullet-hell format of the game, and melee weapons eliminate this pretty much entirely. They also don't generally offer enough of a damage bonus to warrant the vastly increased risk of using them.
My final gripe is that the badge system could've used some more work. Most of the buffs offered through the badges felt pretty underpowered (save for a few that, in my opinion, are generally the only ones in which the reward feels substantial). They also did not synergise spectacularly with each other, making each badge feel more independent. It never felt like I was creating a powerful build that was specialized in a certain category, which could've fleshed out my run and offered additional replayability.
While I sound quite negative, I want to emphasize that I GREATLY enjoyed my experience with this game. It was created by a very small team of people, but the passion and love poured into it really shows! It's a great game that I would highly recommend to anybody curious. While my review might seem harsh, it's only because I really loved the game and would like to see it be even better. Greatly recommended!