SAGE 2024 - Demo Aurascope SAGE 2024 Demo

Wow, this is crazy impressive. Graphics are amazing, sounds and music are great, and of course the gameplay is *chefs kiss*. I like that each level can't be fully explored on the first playthrough, and has to be revisited multiple times to obtain all the energy cores (much like Super Mario 64 / Odyssey). The levels themselves are massively explorable. The Aurascope itself is a nice gameplay hook, as its use varies depending on the aura of the item it is activating. Really a top-tier game you have here!

Played through four stages of the demo and I was thoroughly impressed! the pixel art on display was beautiful and the game has a strong design philosophy both in regard to level design and character moveset! My only criticism is that I sometimes struggled with enemies as I wasn't sure the best way to deal with them, especially since they all take multiple hits to defeat (which I like by the way, it fits the more puzzle platformy approach this game takes!). Both Trace and Aurora had a slide ability that worked fairly well (by crouching and then hitting B or pressing down while running) but if you don't have enough momentum behind it you quickly lose speed and then go back to idle state, causing you to take damage if you're touching an enemy when the slide ends. When starting the slide, there's also a chance it'll cause you to soar over the ground in a small arc (I'm not sure if both characters do this but Aurora definitely does) and this resulted in me flying completely over some enemies because their hitboxes were so small. I will say that compared to other platformers like Mario and Sonic the enemies felt rather small in general, so if you try to deal with them via the traditional method of jumping it's a little touchy.

That's my only major complaint though, and with time and effort I'm sure I could get a handle of the character controls and overcome the things I listed through sheer skill. The movesets of the characters allow for tons of player expression and everything about the movement in the game feels fluid. Like I said earlier, the game's pixel art is gorgeous and I also really liked the music. Animations were expressive and cutscenes were presented well too. I also had a LOT of fun in the boss fight against Tripmight! All an all the game's presentation is amazing and I'm really excited to see where development goes. I already added the game to my Steam wishlist because I'm genuinely interested in buying and playing it once finished so hats off to the developer, what's on display here is amazing so far!

EDIT:
I played a bit more and wanted to make a correction. The hop I was talking about happens if you're ALREADY sliding and then hit the B button. It also happens if you start a slide while on a slope. The player does a little hop to gain speed and then keep sliding. If you're approaching an enemy while doing this, you can accidentally hop over them. On flat ground this is a more of a player error thing but when doing it on slopes it did trip me up a bit. I think I would eventually get used to it though.

This is pleasant and attractive, but I don't particularly understand or enjoy the mission structure. It would be a lot simpler to have a linear series of distinct levels instead of all this stuff with teleports and energy barriers.