Fun top-down action in this game! Here's what I liked:

• The music is an awesome mix of modern and retro styles
• The sound effects are perfectly retro
• The sprites and mapping are pixelated but still easy on the eyes. Good color contrast so I never was confused about where my character was, where the enemies are, or where the map boundaries are.
• Novella looks good and plays well, both in normal and "transformed" modes
• Controls are relatively simple and can be learned quickly
• Strafing is a unique mechanic and its use is encouraged well
• Game is paced well: tutorials are presented clearly, enemy balance is spot-on, levels don't take too long for a jam game (or even introductory stages)
• Text is free of apparent spelling and grammar errors and communicates information efficiently

I do have a few criticisms:

• I found using the space bar for strafing not intuitive. While not the worst key to use, I kept reaching for the shift and control keys instead.
• Some icons are not presented correctly in the inventory. For example, I thought I was stuck here:

I didn't realize that one of the items on the right was actually the key I needed for the door.

• The transformation sequence seemed to go on a little long. I know that the point is to be vulnerable for a little while, but it seems to go on even longer than necessary.

In short, I loved playing this game. It nails the nostalgia vibe while abiding by solid game design standards. Way to go!

First off, apologies for leaving this one so long.

In general, I enjoyed the gameplay here. The transform mechanic is neat and combat in both normal and transformed forms is satisfying and fun.

There were a few things about the gameplay that I'm not quite sure about. I wouldn't call them flaws necessarily, or even things I didn't like, but more things I was a bit confused about.

Requiring a full soul bar to transform is an interesting tradeoff, but I don't think it really worked out. I only transformed if I felt I really needed to, because I was worried I'd run into a boss or something without a full soul bar and get pasted. Transforming also takes a really long time.

I quickly ended up with more potions around than I could hold. Having to juggle half-full potions and weigh what you want to keep and what you want to ditch could be interesting, but with the current length and balancing felt pretty pointless.

The enemy AI is extremely predictable and exploitable. You can kind of bait enemies out and then stunlock them with arrows. The game does seem to balanced with this in mind, though.

Magissa moves really slow. Fortunately the maps aren't so big as to make this irritating, but it does make dodging quite difficult at times. This might have been deliberate, though.

It's undeniably retro but I'm not sure what it's going for exactly. The title screen mixes crisp text with a low-fi logo, and the only system I know of that can run a split resolution like this is the Amiga. Tracker music, too, is very Amiga-esque. The colour palette and style of the tileset is strongly reminiscent of SNES games while the character sprites are more NES or Game Boy. It also has a very MS DOS exit prompt. On the whole, though, it works well enough, and I'm just a retro nerd nitpicking at this point.

In particular, I really liked the music. I could sit at that title screen all day. The graphics were good but they didn't really stand out to me, it's a decent retro-style sprite game but there are a zillion of those out there.

I think the length of this game is about right for a game jam demo. If it were longer I'd start complaining about saves and pause menus and more breaks in the action, but as it stands it's not a problem and the game flows well.

I'd like to see more story and more background information in particular, but that's probably out of scope and not in line with what this game was going for. I just like games with a lot of story.

In that vein there are definitely places I kinda wished this game was more ambitious in, but you can only make so much, and it does a good job of being a retro-style action game.

Here’s my experience with the game

This game looks great, pretty nostalgic for me, The intro part is pretty engaging (the part before you get the pendant)  As far as I can see this game is pretty polished.

I’d say transform mechanic might be interesting, their charge and cost will make me think twice about when to use it.

After defeating the boss it moves onto level 1, I’m a bit surprised it didn’t heal me when I enter the new level though so I’m left with 2 hp, after a while I finally got a life potion so I drink it immediately.

Then after using the key to unlock the gate,  level 2 start, and there’s a green goblin that shoots a projectile, that surprise me!, Its projectile is so quick that there’s no way to dodge it, I almost died have to bait it to shoot first before I can safely shoot back at it.

Then I proceed forward and there are even more enemies that can shoot! They shoot right through trees and walls There’s no way I can fight back! the octopus is kind of possible to dodge, but the green goblin is impossible, with 1 hp left I decided to transform into a magical girl, And then realize I can now shoot through the wall too, I can fight back now. I come across a pink door and grey door but I can’t open it, So I go back thinking I missed something, And I did! There’s a part with lots of octopuses, I’m a bit hesitant though, I only have 1 hp left, and I have no life potion but lots of soul potion, these octopuses can shoot through walls but I can’t? that’s not fair. I then use all the soul potion I have and barely have enough soul to transform and kill all octopuses. after that I got the pink key and proceed, turn out the pink door is also there, It turned out the path is connected, But I still can’t open the grey door, So I walk around for a solid minute, kill one pink slime and after some times later I come back to the grey door, This time there’s a key in front of it?  where did it come from? after that level 3 starts.

Enter level 3 I still have 1 hp, but wait! the plant thing finally drop a life potion! thank god. I now have 4 hp. The octopuses there drop a lot of life potion what? I guess I’m just very unlucky on the last level, There are some octopuses that shoot fire, I’m playing way more cautiously now so their fast projectile never land on me, and then boss fight, green goblin there give me a bit of trouble  but after killed them all, I transform and easily kill the boss with no effort

Conclusion: very fun game, I never play Arkista's Ring so I don’t know how closely this relates to that game but the gameplay does put me on edge all the time. I had fun all the way through,