The core gameplay is just my speed of platforming and fighting. After what effectively amounts to a tutorial level, the main character feels responsive while still animating fluidly. That, in itself, is no small feat.

It's clear that Dean Dodrill wanted players to feel powerful and have some variety of moves to use without feeling overly technical. I'm especially pleased at the parrying mechanic, which plays it somewhat fast and loose with the timing in a way that benefits the player. Even when done accidentally, parrying is never a bad thing as it leaves the victim monster helpless for an ample span of time, allowing you to finish it off at your leisure.

The XP bonus system for racking up large hit combos has done well to encourage me to take opportunities for combos, without making me feel punished if I happen to miss out. The timer on the combo score allows a player to fight defensively and take an instant to reposition themselves if they become surrounded. It's also relatively easy to rack up the combo hits with some visually impressive abilities that can turn the majority of the screen into a flaring hazard zone that chews monsters to bits with a great many hits. To really max out combos, though, you'll need to balance screen-filling aggressive powers against your finite ability to use special moves to hop from enemy group to enemy group. I haven't bothered pushing myself for that, but I appreciate that the challenge is there for when I'm ready.

The leveling system does a great job of following the difficulty curve of the game's monsters. Again, no small feat here, as many AAA games manage to bollocks this up nicely, usually leaving the player to grind for experience or resources.

The world is setup to have several hub zones where the player can receive quests that progress the main story, reward them with loot and new abilities, and explore the world of Elysia. One thing I find a touch frustrating are a couple of quests that become available early in the game but are impossible to finish until later, and one in particular seems to be destined for the end-game. Still, many can be tackled right away, and accomplishing them is rewarding.

There is a crafting system which is modestly important but not critical to the gameplay. It gives purpose to the wide variety of items that monsters drop. I don't feel, so far, that it's especially missing any items, but I do wish that there were a wider variety of items to encourage me to use the many, many components that I'm picking up. I find myself hoarding them on the chance that they're needed for crafting something, but I think there may be more types of components than types of craftable items. It would seem strange and a little backwards if that were really the case, but I'm also not done with the game yet.

The voice acting is competent, though nothing terribly special. It's certainly better than a lot of professional voice acting from the English translation of many Japanese games, but natively western AAA games generally have better performances. I can absolutely forgive that, however; I'm aware of how much the Screen Actors' Guild wants for their voice talent and I wouldn't wish that on anybody. And it speaks volumes that I draw comparisons to AAA games with their SAG-friendly budgets. This is pretty good for anyone who can't afford to pad Hollywood's pocketbooks.

The writing itself is notable mostly for not sucking. It's not treading any new narrative ground, it won't win any awards, but it's functional, its characters have personalities, and, well... it doesn't suck. That's also pretty good, I think, for one guy by his lonesome.

I find Fidget to be funny and cute. She plays the comic relief from a variety of perspectives, usually poking fun at elements of the game itself or its hybrid of genres. I could see how people would find her annoying, but let's make one thing clear: She never interrupts the player with a "hey, listen!" so she's at least 10 or 11 internets more tolerable than Navi ever was. The writing also uses her as the butt of several jokes, as well, which should bring some chuckles from the people who do find her annoying.

Obviously, it's amazing that the art and animation was all done by one guy. I mean, that's a fucking epic quantity of work, and done at generally fantastic levels of quality. It's easy to want to compare this game to the likes of Muramasa from Vanillaware, but it just seems unfair to compare a one-man show against a studio with 8 people devoted wholly to character and background art, and never mind producers, programmers, and writers.

With that in mind, I find many of the characters' eyes just a touch off, as though they're painted onto the characters' faces instead of placed inside the character's faces the way eyes actually are.

Visually, everything else is fantastic. Give this man all your internets, because he wins.