05 — The Tarnishing of Juxtia | #Metroidvania First Impressions (Steam Nextfest June 2022)
9I've been following "The Tarnishing of Juxtia" for a long time. It's a 2D soulslike Metroidvania in the same vein as "Death's Gambit: Afterlife", but leaning even more heavily into the Dark Souls style. It uses spline-style sprite rotation on the main character so that each piece is free to be replaced depending on what armour you pick up, and makes for a truly representative experience for your playstyle — although that isn't without its problems.
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Written Feedback for Devs:
-Combat feels smooth yet crunchy, with great weight.
-Great amount of weapon variety presented, which is cool.
-Pixel art backgrounds are crisp and detailed and don't detract from the foreground.
-Sprite outlines shimmer when rotating which is a little offputting. Not sure there's anything that can be done about that.
Personally, I think the PC and NPCs would have all looked better as hand-drawn rather than pixel-art sprites, especially considering the shimmering effect on the pixel art and how it rotates (which would have been better hidden with hand-drawn art) but I appreciate it is faaaaar too late into development for any changes there.
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Game Description from Steam:
As the final creation of the Goddess, Juxtia, journey through the ruins of two divine kingdoms, overrun by the Tarnishing. Challenging combat, a hauntingly beautiful score, and a sinister narrative work in unison to make "The Tarnishing of Juxtia" an unforgettable 2D dark fantasy action RPG.
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#TarnishingOfJuxtia #metroidvania #demo