Hitodama is a classical Metroidvania. Everything in this quest is unique and no reminiscent of Zelda at all, which speaks a lot about the amount of work that has been put into it. I like the concept of having magic instead of weapons, kind of gives an RPG feeling to it.

While the game is very polished, it feels a little sterile. Tilesets and layout overall is a little PacMan-esque, and also the sound feels like you are playing on a Commodore 64. While some people may like this, I didn't find this feature very appealing. There is some lacking atmosphere and immersion, and all you do is kill everything and advance to the next screen. The puzzles are okay, but a lot of them are about finding secret passages on the walls, so you end up shooting every wall tile to discover some potential passages. Also enemies have too much HP. You have to hit to an average of four times per enemy to kill them, and having 6 enemies in a screen means that you have to spend some time hitting and evading.

After having a friend recommend it, I gave it a whirl and had a fantastic time with it. Any thoughts I had about the quest seem to have already been said at this point, so I'll just leave here with a rating.

Looking forward to giving Yuurei a try!

Hitodama is one of the first metroidvania games I've ever played, and I'm really starting to like the genre! I enjoy the non-linearity associated with the quest. It's enough to feel like I am actually making my own path through the game, but not so much that I feel hopelessly lost with no idea where to go next. The items are also very creative and different, and I actually used most of them rather than spamming one OP weapon. The coin system is pretty cool, too, and I intend on doing a run with Will where I 100% the game, getting all coins, items, life upgrades, and magic upgrades in the game. I also want to eventually find this secret "post-game dungeon" that I've heard about around the forums.

Now let's talk about the bosses. I really like the whole "kill two bosses seperately, then fight them together" concept. It was a challenge to keep track of two bosses at once! Then there's the elephant in the room... the Lord of the Lost. This boss wasn't as great as the others. In my opinion, it was much easier than the dual battle that was fought earlier in the area, but it also just wasn't as unique or fun as the other bosses. I pretty much just found a safe spot and spammed the wind spell at it until either the homing yellow ayyacks or the wave of blue attacks came. Then I'd simply just move out of the way for a moment and get back to my safe spot. This could've been such a better climzx to an otherwise fantastic game.

This game is fantastic! The bosses are great, the areas feel unique, it was challenging, and unfair and underwhelming points in the game are usually short. Except for Acheron. That took AGES! Hopefully there isn't ANYTHING similar in Yuurei, which I plan on playing after my run of Will. I give this masterpiece 5 stars. Good work, Aevin!

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Edit: Staff contacted me an basically told me that I'd have to bump up my rating for all quests I have ever reviewed by one star. Note that this does not reflect my own opinion on the matter, or the quest, but just that it was something I was made required to do.

I don't know how you feel on the matter, but it just seems disingenuous to me. *shrug*
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I'll be going into details about stuff, so if you want to avoid spoilers, stay away.

Hitodama is a quest I quite enjoyed to playthrough. It has quite a few flaws, but most of them are minor and generally don't hurt the experience.

It's a game that is similar to the metroid titles, it's all about exploring a world and finding upgrades that let's you reach new areas. It's a bit open ended in what order you do areas in, which is nice, and the quest is very good at letting you know where you need to go next. You'll generally pass by the barrier that you lack an item for before you have it, and they are generally distinct enough to be memorable. The quest has a good sense of flow for the most part, though backtracking becomes tedious when you start unlocking the entirety of the map. There were several instances in this quest where the next area I needed to go to was the one on the opposite end of the map. Areas generally don't get much faster to go through even with upgrades, and short-cuts or warp solutions are nowhere to be seen.

While it takes a while to get used too, the logic behind secrets are generally quite clear, and aside for the post-game dungeon there are good visual clues for it. They are very same-y though, so once you get on the games wavelength they are generally not hard to find. The game also seem to bank a bit too hard on players doing a 100% run, that is to say finding all the secrets. The final boss, which I'll get back to, can be a bit arse without all the upgrades. Though that's not necessarily true, it's just that you'd need specifically the final upgrade that you get for 100% item collection. I think that's a bit limiting personally, especially since I'd consider the final boss being a bit too easy with the upgrade, but probably a bit too hard without it.

Speaking of bosses, this game has a bunch of really good ones. This game doesn't have that many bosses, and they are in general very similar, but the construction of them is what makes them great. Each half of the game has three boss fights, the first two fights are against foes that are similar to each other, but have slightly different movesets, while the third fight is against both on the same time. This is a great way to raise the stakes really high without going out of the players comfort zone. The player will already be familiar with how the third fight works before it even starts, they now just need to improve even more so they can best both of these foes on the same time. As mentioned, the second half of the game does this again, but with two even harder foes. I personally find this approach great, and I found the fights to be both challenging and fair, (though they are probably a nightmare on a low% run).

The final boss, on the otherhand, is a mess. Getting hit by anything gives you some form of debuff, either the screen going wave-y or causing "confusion" which makes your movement inputs walk you in different (random) directions. I beat the fight on first or second try so I wouldn't call it hard, but I wouldn't call it enjoyable or well constructed either. It turns into a lame and very unsatisfying way to end this otherwise fairly enjoyable quest.

The level design in this quest vary from competent, to mediocre, or awful depending on the area. I'm not going to give any specific examples, since that seems like it would be beating a dead horse at this point. If I want to get nitpicky there are some questionable enemy placements in certain areas (such as the fast "boos" in largely swimming based screens), and some level design aspects that aren't clear until you have already been hit by it, (taking damage from spikes that are still covered by grass). One thing that is worth pointing out is that you don't know if a block is breakable before you shoot it, because there is no visual cue for it. This is fine for secret passages, but there are plenty of passages in the main path of several areas where you need to deal with that nonsense. This generally leads to the player not trusting the visuals and goes around blasting every wall.



Graphically the quest is also a mess. The tilework is great/decent, but the graphics themselves are kind of uninspired and plain, not to mention clearly lacking in variety. I don't think the idea of a very "blocky" is bad, but it does not really mesh well with the higher fidelity on other graphical things, such has the high detail sprites or the general largeness of the palette. I just generally don't like the end look of the quest, the very blocky look also ruins a bit of the exploration aspect of the game, because every area will look very same-y, and the same tiles are re-used in several areas. The palette itself is in general very good throughout the entire quest.

Audio design is kind of garbage, you're going to spend the majority of the game blasting the wind spell, which has a very grating sound effect. In regards to music it's a bit hit and miss, I personally don't think much thought were put into the soundtracks since it's a bit here and there in regards to theme, but I didn't really have much expectations in that regard either. I will say this though, there was an area that legit had a track so annoying that I had to mute the quest, that's a problem.


Overall I think this is a good quest. I didn't find it amazing, but it didn't waste my time and I generally had a good time playing it. The post-game dungeon is pretty tosh, but it's basically a non-factor to be honest. There's definitively room of improvement here, but I would recommend this quest.

It had a few things I did not like (running around in circles and the block design can't beat a nice world with trees and such stuff, furthermore I never thought of foes as a pure annoyance that often before) but it is unique, so I can look over it.

What really could have been better... certain weapons I nearly never used at all (cause not needed) and after using them up if needed, searching for more mana was annoying... Some of them would be better as alternate main weapons to have at least any use and also some foes with at least small strategy to win against them would have been nice. Also the alternate characters could bring at least a bit more change (different level colour, maybe different behavior like fast recharging mana + low defense for Jack), only for the few talk, playing through it again does not feel worth it.

Apparently there's no music?

Not sure why now all of sudden, but I've decided to pick up the quest again. I forgot the reason why I dropped this (I think it was to do with computer or save file problems) but I regained the motivation. I did watch an entire Let's Play series of this but I don't think it's the same as playing and beating the quest so I refrain from giving my final thoughts.

Keep in mind I will be playing at a snail's pace because of other stuff, so don't expect a review any time soon. Thought I'd let you know, and despite not having beaten this yet, I look forward to the sequel(?).

Found a nasty glitch...(?) If you save your game in the area you are teleported to after fighting both Jack and Will, and you resume your quest, you start off where I don't think you should be.

I wasn't even ready (or anticipating) for another boss fight! I figured I didn't have the right equipment, and since I couldn't do jack spit, I gave up.

this quest is awesome i really like it if you ever plan to update id really appreciate a compass like thing that beeps when a coin is in the room maybe after you beat the game just so i can find everything easier

Pintaza. ¡Ahora mismo me pongo a jugarlo! Un Grande este Aevin