Iron Reckoning

Of Vagabonds and Wards.
Iron Reckoning is a game about traversing large, mostly empty levels, until you get to the giant, towering bosses, and then you need to break their glowing power sources until they explode. Both these elements are built around the game's core unique mechanic, that is, the traversal.
The protagonist, Jaenna, can do the regular 3rd person action game sprint. Sprinting depletes stamina (the transparent blue bar behind the HP bar), and it doesn't last very long. Which is why you will probably spend most of the game not doing that. Instead, Jaenna will use her unique “bladestrike” ability-- which allows her to spawn and throw infinite daggers, and launch herself in the air after them. This isn't quite the “teleport to a thrown projectile” mechanic you may have seen in a bunch of recent 2d games- the system here is a bit more complex, especially since once you've launched yourself, hitting the jump button gives you multiple air dashes- but each one takes a portion of your mana/energy bar=- as does launching yourself after a new blade (spawning blades is free). Essentially, until you run out of energy,you can stay airborne. And the game's level design is bult around doing just that. There's no ability or stats progression across the pretty short game, and your sense of progress largely comes from mastering the physics of the travel system, knowing the right time to launch yourself (the daggers have a parabolic trajectory when thrown, and you want to launch yourself when they are at peak height, for more momentum), and the way to maintain momentum to overcome obstacles and reach objectives. And the game does a fine job testing you across the 5 chapters of the story.
The objectives come either in the form of massive climbing challenges, or the boss fights against the golem-like mechs called “Vagabonds”. There is no real fall damage, and you can always slow down your fall by triggering the sword attack animation, which kills all momentum, including downward. The fights are not exactly difficult, because the massive weapons don't pose a direct threat, and can easily be dodged. The main intent here is to convey the sense of scale, which is absolutely immense- each one is easily at least a hundred times Jaenna's size. There are few ridges where she can stand to regain energy to continue her ascend, so the fights are a true test of the game's traversal system. And honestly,these set pieces are absolutely the game's highlight. Again, they aren't difficult, and technically, if you want to spend like an hour, you can whittle down each Vagabond's hp by hitting whatever bit is closest to you, and not target a single weak spot- but to do so would rob yourself of the experience of being on top of an absolutely gigantic machine and dismantling it, despite being a mere insect to its bulk.
Besides the Vagabonds, the game features melee and ranged combat again the machines and the Ward Clan humans that serve/worship them. Melee combat works by chaining attacks into a combo with timed inputs- completing a full combo allows you to regain a portion of HP bar that can auto-heal. There's also a block command, and hitting it at the right time to parry can stagger enemies. The encounter design tends to favour mobs that swarm you from all sides, so picking fights and extricating yourself is a big part of it.
There is also a ranged mode. In ranged mode, Jaenna can either shoot energy projectiles, or put up a shield to block incoming ones. Both actions take up the same power/mana bar as does your bladestrike, and it recovers much quicker in melee mode. To be honest, I found the best use of this is to circle-strafe when dealing with ranged enemies, while having target lock on, as that works as aim assist. It's also worth noting that the most dangerous ranged enemies are turrets, and the shield doesn't really block their projectiles. Overall, the combat is functional, but it's probably the least exciting part of the game.
The levels are huge, but largely empty. The only real collectibles are the journals of a member of a previous expedition to the islands, which slowly gives you more backstory about what is going on. These journals have alphabetic labels, so you can always know if you missed one. Backtracking and looking for the ones I've missed proabbly amounted to a big chunk of my playtime (even though it also meant I got to redo a bunch of Vagabond fights, improving my skill at them, which was thrilling)
Graphics are functional, but not really exciting. The main template is green field with big hills, though you get some ash desert thrown in as well. The important things are clearly colour-coded in red, which stands out against all backgrounds, which helps. The music is largely ambient, but has a few decent tracks.
The game's story is... a bit odd. The game opens up with Jaenna killing a bunch of Wards, with no real backstory, unless you go digging in the menus and read it. The central conflict between her and the primary antagonist doesn't really become clear until the very end- and the extended ending cutscene tries to do a sequel hook, while also introducing a bunch of questions and making you wonder what everything was. Frankly, it' an odd, and a bit awkward story. The voice acting here doesn't seem professional, but it gets the messages across.
The main question about the game is whether it's worth buying. This is a very budget Unity project, and there's a lot of aspects here that are unremarkable. At the same time, the sheer sense of scale that is evoked by the Vagabond fights, even if they lack difficulty and a sense of true danger, is really worth experiencing. The traversal is genuinely fun, once you master it, and it allows you to bypass most enemy mobs towards the endgame. I did an ultra-completionist run, and it took 10 hours to hunt down every journal via backtracking, and beat the final boss. A simple linear run can probably be done in a few hours, once you've gotten the hang of the movement.
This is an interesting experience much more than it is a good game, but fundamentally, I still think more people should give it a try.