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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.
