Sundered: Eldritch Edition

The best Metroidvania I've played since SOTN and until I played Bloodstained, surpassing (4 me) Rabi Ribi and Hollow Knight
Why?
Half of the time the game is very quiet. Then a single enemy appear, then the GONG (that signals enemies know about the player) starts playing, and another enemy, and two more, and then....
HORDES OF ENEMIES actively hunting the player! There are few games that are able to throw HORDES of monsters at the player in a convincing/nice way, with a need to quickly adapt to tactical situations that can mean life-or-death early, on non-stop action... WHEN the hordes are hunting you. Do you kill every one of them or just outrun the horde of enemies? These are the two seemingly feasible way to "dissolve" the hordes.
The theme is simply waaaayyyy too good. Humans invading a lovecraftian-abomination populated dimension. And the way the game shows the story makes it sort of clear that there are all only sides of grey, as the humans, according to the notes, are sorta brutal and almost evil to the "natives" that were just happily living in their lovercraftian-abomination life in their dimension, going on with their daily chores, doing the dishes, etc. With 3 endings, and 2 EXCLUSIVE endings chosing opposite faction skill sets, there is replayability for at least 2 full runs taking about ~21 hours each!
This game is frequently compared to Dead Cells for some reason... Well, they're very different monsters. This one's beauty lies in the vs-horde fighting, more akin Musou games but on a 2D Metroidvania context that worked sweetly well!
Overall, MUST PLAY!

TL:DR 11hr playtime on Normal Difficulty. Gorgeous game. 9/10. Big recommend to any fans of Metroidvanias who also enjoy Rougelikes.
The game is a mix of Metroidvania and Rougelike. The overall map layout is the same, but many of the rooms are more like zones with the insides of the zones being randomized so while you will always follow the same path through the zones to get back to where you were, the exact path will be different every time. I thought this was a really good way to blend the genres and also addresses some of my complaints about a lot of rougelikes being never ending mazes where a good run is completely RNG based and you can often feel like you are wasting your time. Here in Sundered, every enemy you kill and pot you break drops shards that you can spend between runs on small upgrades to things like your health and damage. Eventually, enough of those small upgrades makes a big difference when you go back through old rooms you've visted before.
The artwork for the game is GORGEOUS everything is hand drawn and really gives off that creepy Lovecraftian vibe. The movement abilities are fun and impactful on exploring the world. The map is well laid out for a Metroidvania with lots of ability check shortcuts and other shortcuts that reward you for exploring everywhere. The combat is fun and has some customization with your upgrades. For instance, I skipped as many of the Ranged Attack nodes on the skill tree as I could, favoring Melee combat. Sometimes, though, the best thing to do is to just run until the monsters stop spawning.
My biggest complaint with the game is the minimalistic approach they took with the story. I felt kind of lost in the beginning not really knowing why I was doing what I was doing. But I suppose that was kind of the point? The game has 3 different endings, something I didn't know when I first started. One where you embrace the darkness and become corrupted, one where you resist the darkness and become a beacon of hope, and the third neutral ending if you didn't go 100% one way or the other. I felt like the game didn't really make it clear in the beginning there were options for this. I ended up going full corruption as I didn't even know that Resisting awarded you with different skill upgrades compared to the corrupted upgrades which they are very up front about.
Overall, I put in just over 11hrs and acheived a 98% completion rating. I thought about going back in to finish that to 100% but then I remembered the things I would need to collect to achieve that were RNG drop dependent and it just killed my desire as I didn't feel like grinding. Overall, I would give the game a 9/10. Big recommend to any fans of Metroidvanias who also enjoy Rougelikes.

Very good game! Its has very fun game play and the story is also really good. It seems like there could be multiple endings but I only did one play through.

I would definitely recommend this overall. The marriage of Metroidvania and Roguelike is done so uniquely in this and the number of ways you can tackle certain situations is extremely unique. The music, although very sparse, is fantastic and sets a perfect tone. The sound design is really excellent and hits the Lovecraft notes really well. The art, as you can easily see in all these screenshots, is unbelievable. This is a very beautiful game that was clearly made with so much love. I also really enjoyed Jotun, but enjoyed that a bit more.
This game is only around 10-12 hours long to complete. I chose not to finish it, not because it was too difficult or anything, but because I got bored and I don't find a need to complete something that's no longer bringing me joy. The penultimate boss wasn't difficult, it was just an absolute slog to fight and after my first attempt I just quit the game from being tired of the samey combat. I tried to return and made it about halfway through the fight with full potions and just said "why am I doing this? I had fun, let me leave this on a high note." So I did. Didn't complete it, but I'd still absolutely recommend this. The combat overstays its welcome but this is well worth the price when it's discounted.

Gave up on game first time around.. and just picked it back up.. almost gave up again, but finally getting somewhere with it. Takes some patience

So, to start off, I have got mixed feelings. I love the art, the smoothness of animations, fights and gameplay, but it gets kind of annoying, especially on harder difficulties, it's not for me, the pacing feels lacking in the area of smoothness they fought. There are just better games similar to this one, like.. Dust an elysian tail, eh.
However, love that it has 3 endings and to get the platinum, you'd need to at least make a copy of your save, and keep those shards, finish it without doing anything, finish it then with destroying it, finish it with corrupting it, a spoiler for those who want or would ever platinum or see all of those endings without repeating the game over and over. Or just make a 2nd playthrough with 2 endings.
The story is sublime, there is none basically, just a bit to make you go through the world, nothing else, but voices, sounds are quite amazing.
Still I know it's an indie game studio, so I'll give them some credit there.
I'll give it 7/10 (feeling like I wish I could give less), could be 8 if not some annoying decisions this game has. I've mastered almost every perk out there, got bored of it, so rushed through the final as I could, tho it took for my save around 17 hours with grinding, could easily finish this in under 10 hours, so keep that in mind. I've just wasted time nonetheless.
If you love handrawn games like the Sundered is, give it a try. But don't expect a ground breaking game of the genre, because it's not this one, not even close. However, I'll not recommend this game for this, but will keep recommended button for, since it's just a fine/good game that I could let someone know to try.
I'll give it a go to platinum, even tho I got kinda bored, exhausted, and I hate this game so much.
Have fun, enjoy!
Edit. Platinum'd this game, took me additonal 9 hours for 1 playthrough with 2 endings, maxed character out, taken everything I could ever.
This run annoyed me even more, but.. I felt like it was still a good time spent. Enjoy.
PS. Played and Finished it on the Steam Deck OLED.

General
The game optimization is very good.
Feels like there's too many "quick time events", from the way movement, jumping and wall climb work to the traps' timing.
At the beginning the spike traps are not obvious at all due to their green color so they blend with the terrain sometimes, espeecially if you're tired.
Sometimes enemies can spawn in an area behind a locked door which is pretty stupid even if you can kill them since they get near the door.
The fact that you can spend shards only after death isn't obvious and leaves you wondering till you die the first time, same thing about saves, when is the game being saved.
On the one hand, it's nice that everything respawns all the time, but it just means there's a lot to grind xD
Overall it's a nice metroidvania which can get really difficult by the end, even when you take the better upgrades and even though the story is minimalistic it's still has a nice touch in the way it is presented to the player.
My main issue is that I see no reason to play it 3 times without any shortcuts and the way saves work you can't even split saves without doing it manually from the game files.