Yohane the Parhelion -Blaze in the DeepBlue- Demo Playthrough (Steam Next Fest Oct 2023)
1There are evidently multiple Yohane games in the works; this one is a metroidvania by the highly-recognized Inti Creates.
My most recent Inti Creates experience (the Gal Guardians demo) was not the greatest experience, so I was prepared for this one to go either way. The good news is it _is_ actually a proper metroidvania this time. The bad news is... it's still not a terribly enjoyable one.
Blaze in the DeepBlue has some neat ideas including crafting and summoned character abilities, but combat generally feels onerous due to attacks always freezing you in place (even in midair) and having significant cooldowns. You need to kill things to get crafting resources, but killing things feels like a chore that interrupts movement/traversal.
One of the features this game touts is randomized rooms at specific points. It took me a while to catch on to where this happens, but ultimately feels like pointless filler, since the randomized rooms don't seem to ever have meaningful progression or items.
Even worse: the demo makes you re-fight the same exact boss 3 times in slightly-differently-shaped rooms. It's not a very good sign if the demo already has blatant filler like this.
The demo does tease various future means of progression, and has great artwork and voiceovers. If you're a fan of Love Live! Sunshine or can look past the annoying combat traits, give it a look on Steam. As for me, I'll stick to earlier and stronger entries from Inti Creates' repertoire.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2404370/YOHANE_THE_PARHELION_BLAZE_in_the_DEEPBLUE/