Gal Guardians

No fast travel from the castle to other save points, fucking really?
I have to walk all the way back?

7 (seven) huge commercial and spiritual flops in a row from Inti
It might be over for them

There is fast travel. From the castle to various fast travel points.

How?
I could only travel from Tea Table (save point) to Castle (one way trip)
and from Charon to other Charon

and from Charon to other Charon

You get a castle-charon.

no Boss Rush

no New Game+

no Shinobu & Maya mode

no Kurona's cameo

Well, I'm pretty disappointed with Inti but I love Masha, so for me it's still was a game worth playing.

how

how? when?

completely agree with this dude. lack of convenient fast travel is a dishonest playtime squeezing.

Zoomers truly are deplorable

I don't remember. I am fairly positive it's one of the souls in the cave leading to Dranis.
It may or may not be this one in the upper left, but maybe not. There are a couple of them in the cave.

Why was the Xbox version delayed indefinitely?

too sexy for americans

Yohane

bad

Cychronicle

good but no content

PuzzMiX

bad

Umbraclaw

exists

Card-en-Ciel

good

Flamefrit

good but no content

Servants of the Dark

good but no content

inti really needs to give their games a few extra months, it's becoming clear they can't pump out games like they used to

it is this one
I missed it and had to look up where it was once I was heading to the dead sea since by that point I was sure they would have given me the castle charon by then

I'm done, also, thanks for wasting my time Inti

How many HOURS did I just spend running around this map full of various types of cave trying to find the progression item I missed, only to find that the game literally required me to grind for money to buy a large bone to unlock the ability

You know what? The Yohane game was way better than this. I think the movement and physics in GG: SotD is better, but just about everything else was better in Yohane, and that wasn't exactly everyone's favourite Inti game. And it's a shame because the presentation and pixel art are really good, clearly someone cared, but whoever had overall control of this game should be shot into space.

the lack of teleport points is a serious issue too. There's so much backtracking.

retards wrongfully tag Demon Purge as a metroidvania on Steam because they're clueless retards

this leads to some negative reviews going wtf this isn't a metroidvania at all!?!?!

sequel gets made and its an actual full on metroidvania this time like presumably a ton of people wanted

they're too retarded for the genre, which is why this one's sitting at a mixed rating on Steam

It would be funny if it wasn't so stupid. Hey, OP, how about you do some exploring in this exploration game? There's full two way fast travel and you can find the servant's soul that unlocks the option in the main hub early on in the game.

which is why this one's sitting at a mixed rating on Steam

Actually, it's mixed because it review bombed by the Chinese at launch.

Any mods to fix that shit yet then?

>they're too retarded for the genre

And by they I mean Steam players in case I wasn't clear enough, this game's metroidvania elements are handled quite competently and is by far the studio's best attempt on the genre so far.

Trust me, its not just the Chinese who can't figure out how to play a metroidvania, there's a decent amount of English speaking brainlets too.

I beat it on challenge or whatever the hardest difficulty and this game sucked. It just wasn't fun. The subweapons were generally poorly implemented and the knife-class is the best one. It doesn't help that both of the sisters have a combat mechanic that feels awful to use (the shotgun and charge whip). Lysa is so fucking horny during her last fight, she actually has a lot of different attacks compared to basically every boss. Lysenborg's first phase is actually hard and I never really learned it and just out traded him.

Fast travel was annoying, game made having the super metroid dash somehow feel unfun, tons of chests with non-rewards, reused enemies from the previous game and still filled with palette swaps.

Masha is really cute though.

Masha is really cute though.

Kirika*

Only Gunvolt gets the privilege of delays pls understand. Unironically though they did say they plan to support this game after release, so its a safe bet they'll continue development with free patches like they did with Gnvolt 3, Card-en-Ciel and Dragon Marked for Death before.

game made having the super metroid dash somehow feel unfun

What's wrong with it?

they DRM'd the demo
no buy

cope

Kirika is already taken. I do like her animation for the devil fist (downwards) attack. Masha does a cute shoryuken for the up fist.

Oh yeah and the bosses kinda suck, ESPECIALLY the second demon hunter sisters fight which basically gives you no chances to actually use masha safely so you're just poking them with the smg all fight. The dead sea didn't even have a boss fight.

see, that policy in the image was actually fine in the past, these are the same people who could make games like MM7 and MMZ2 in 3-month development cycles
fast development used to be one of the strong points, but they simply don't have that kind of talent anymore

claims there's no fast travel

contradicts himself in the very next sentence

lmao retard

It trivializes the game stages after you get it since it just instagibs enemies on demand but most of the stages weren't designed for it so if you're backtracking you're constantly having to pull up your map since they're a bit labryinth-like and there's no fucking minimap

I was very excited about this game. Entire playthrough I was clinging to hope that it will get better, or I just do NG+ and there will be huge twist and it will be amazing. Unfortuantelly it's just very avarge.

post that I liked Card-en-ciel and it had active threads

warning for ironic shitposting, post deleted

fuck you, janny

It's just unfun, too many TEDIOUS stuff (mainly forced backtracking due to lack of fast travel, inventory clutter management and spongey bosses)

and there's no fucking minimap

Press the select button.

that'll teach you to play r*guelites

more like mega map with mini gameplay

forced backtracking due to lack of fast travel

That's wrong thoughbeit.

I too enjoyed card en ciel, even if it was very barebones in stage presentation. The puzzle stages can eat my ass though holy shit. There's some pretty catchy muse songs too, wish they were longer. Kurona's in particular is a bit of an ear worm. I also like the one that is literally just anime baba yetu

I didn't go down, missed charon and teleported back to the castle. fml.

card en ciel is safe horny

This blocks the entire fucking screen, it's better than nothing but metroid figured this out years ago.

chose to warp back to the main hub before he found the current area's fast travel point

blames the game

retard-sama...

Yeah the gaming theme felt generic but I liked everything else

Safe bet that it'll get me horny?

save area isn't fast travel point

fast travel point isn't nearby save point

bad game design
also you can't fast travel from castle anyway and still need to walk wal kwalk walk walk walk walk 90000 km to the nearest charon to teleport back to the mine.

The puzzle stages can eat my ass though holy shit.

Seriously, what the fuck were they thinking? It'd be fine as some optional minigame mode, but instead they had like half of the post-release cards locked behind that mode. I bought a deckbuilder, not a puzzle game.

No kurona bodytype character to replace the cow

The funniest shit is that there's a late game upgrade to get free fast travel (far past the point money means much) and not an upgrade to be able to teleport to save maid tables.

You missed out. The sub weapon synthesis stuff was awesome. Also beat it on challenger and I was untouchable.

also you can't fast travel from castle anyway

Yes you can.

4

you only need 1, ghastly strike.
To be optimal you'd want it to be on a status weapon with crit up+5. You'd then still have a slot left but I don't know what you'd put there. Maybe desperation, I haven't checked to see how much of a damage up it gives.

Drop it and wait for a update.

I didn't miss out on the system. I used it. It still doesn't make the sub weapons less shit. There's at least 3 or 4 carbon copies of the same subweapon but stronger (incredibly boring design), you don't even get any of the boomerang type weapons until like 60% through the game, tons of useless passives, straight up BAD passives like doubled cost, and to make things worse i was finding a bunch of new passives I hadn't seen anywhere else in the game in the literal final castle. Where were these earlier? -1 dp also only started to drop in the dead sea. Inventort management sucks, you cant even sell or autodrop passiveless weapons, elemental imbuning also a useless meme just like every casltevania element that isn't holy.

as expected from the developer of MIGHTY NO. 9

That's so you can use it until you find the final area's Karon.

man, fuck this game, its fast travel is so inconvenient

fuck this game, they made the fast travel just a bit TOO convenient

Make up your minds, niggers.

Desperation is an x2 multiplier I believe, but it requires you to be at extremely low HP. It's a pain in the ass to set up so I don't think it's worth it unless you want to see big numbers.

2x? shit, that's way better than I would have expected. Absolutely the way to go.
Then I guess the only question is if crit+5 or pierce is more damage. I don't know what the base crit rate is on fatal pierce or poison bite but it should be a decent amount already.

Could just use backstab for guaranteed crit.

it'd be nice to find the shinobu/maya devil bikini artwork in non SAMPLE form.

this kills the zoomoids

I'm pretty sure status weapons have enough base crit that crit+5 is already guaranteed crits
and if you watch that webm you should see that trying to get around to his back would be much slower since even the suboptimal weapon 3 shots him from the front.

You are remembering that you have a money fountain right? and that every extra fountain in the world you unlock gives you an additional instance of <however much> money the fountain gave you this time?

I ended up grinding for money for a large bone simply for one reason: i didn't want to fight demon hunters yet, so I wanted to know if there was a bone powerup that could let me skip them.

You're replying to a Steam Forum copy pasta.

puzzle stages

but those are the most fun part

They're not. Not even close. I enjoyed SRW J puzzle stages. These ones are just ball crushing.

Do people complain about the Castlevania games having fixed fast travel points too?

your library card?

No, because they're usually sensibly placed outside of SotN, and more importantly, those games are fun with good music. The music in servants of the dark fucking blows.

I don't think the fast travel is much of an issue at all, what's more of an issue is that a player could miss the castle Karon and there's no indication of where Karons are around the world, you just have to stumble across them eventually, they could've at least done something like having a Karon sign pointing to them in the room directly outside where they are.
The way bigger problem is the bones for the true end anyway, absolutely no way to know where the ones you're missing might be even if you have 100% map exploration.

do some exploring in the exploration game

get rewarded with even more backtracking because you didn't do the plot first

Nah fuck you it's a bad metroidvania.

The sub weapon synthesis stuff was awesome.

get ghastly strike

put ghastly strike on a multi-hit subweapon

drop your HP down to near zero

you now insta-gib every enemy in the game including bosses

Yeah, awesome.

you only get ghastly strike 2/3 of the way through the game though
you have to settle with freeze until then

SotD's save points act as an equivalent to that, or the ticket that takes you back to the village in OoE.

one example

faggot, pretty much everything else can be done in whatever order. In some instances the game even acknowledges sequence breaking.

doesn't that same scene still have them say they killed her even if you skipped her and never met her?
funny that they considered doing it a bit out of order but not to the extreme

sequence breaking

finding a soul in an area you can access before the plot gets to that point without doing any sequence breaking at all

Are you retarded? An actual example would've been beating the dragon girl boss with ice skills or the shadow punch which you aren't supposed to get until later. Zuzu's soul fucking defeats your point since you can find it before that story event and obviously know it's Zuzu's soul but you can't use it to revive her until after you see that event.

Presents one option in a game with multiple options and is sad that one option rewards navigating the options well. You don’t like video games.

since you can find it before that story event and obviously know it's Zuzu's soul but you can't use it to revive her until after you see that event.

Sounds like a sequence break to me.

Fast travel placement is important, in Aria of Sorrow they're in good positions generally, whereas in Dawn they weren't. GG2 is more similar to Dawn in that the fast travel positions are in retarded places that aren't helpful at all which is a big demerit.
Pic related is the best example the game gives you, at one point you have to head to the player's position only to be told you need to go back to the castle when the nearest warp point is shown in this stupid roundabout path, when they could've had another short path in yellow that would've actually made it convenient. Almost very fucking fast travel point in GG2 is like this, it's in some stupid out of the way location that isn't convenient to access.

Yeah, I believe getting the soul early and punching out Dranis are the only "acknowledged" sequence breaks. It's a bit weird since you can do a lot more than that, some of it clearly intended.

have 50 options in the game

one option is so obviously the best option that it completely invalidates every other option by existing

You don't understand balance. Breaking a game like Star Ocean 2 or Final Fantasy 8 is good because it rewards ingenuity in how you go about it because you need to know the game systems and take multiple steps to break things early. This isn't a good example because you just play the game until you find the one subweapon that has the skill and then you just apply that skill to other subweapons and that's it, it's one step, done.

Animal Well is released

"OMG the game does not explain me how to play. This is so smart! A new genre! Literally braintroidvania!"

Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark is released

"NO!!! The game does not explain me what to do a couple of times! Where should I go? What should I do?! I don't understand!!! REEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

its always funny seeing people complain about games being dumbed down with signs pointing you everywhere and then cry when the game doesn't explicitely tells them where to go

Enter room

To the right is a boss

To the left is a chest

If you have entered this room you already have all the tools needed to go either way

By your logic opening the chest first is a sequence break. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

By your logic

That's not my logic, that's just a strawman you made up that doesn't even resemble anything in the game.

That is exactly what the situation is with getting Zuzu's soul """early""". It's purely a matter of whether you stumbled across it before the story event talking about it or not.

The game even has Metroid Fusion style hints pointing in the general direction you should head to next and even THEN retards can't figure it out. I'm convinced the people who hate this game are certified brainlets.

Highly ironic posts

but you could have entered the castle and dashed straight the the save point if you wanted to go home

That save point is just as far away as going back to the warp point would be, don't be stupid.

a shorter straight line where you can hold forward while jumping 1 or 2 times

or

a long maze like path where you have to go jump back and forth constantly while in the dark

I'm agree about this one. Placing Karon at the entrance of the Dranis castle would solve so any problems at the start of the game.

sotd is the iX2 of galgun

Only if they kept in the originally planned death penalty

Cute maids!

Both of them are overhated so I guess that tracks.

I still don't understand why THIS exists in the game. It takes half a minute of constant dashing every time I want to get from the throne room to the room with the fountain. Just why? Why they couldn't place the throne next to the Karon's room. Or even better - place the throne in the top part of the fountain room instead of checkpoint. I mean, we have another checkpoint in the next room anyway.

I enjoyed iX2, the boss fights were great

Well, I dropped the pirated version of the game in an hour or so. That fucking pizza cutter ruined the entire gameplay for me, desu.

Basically this. But I guess Servant of the Dark just doesn't have an e-celeb involved on it's production so it's bad for Anon Babble

wtf I have to backtrack to a specific NPC to level up???

wtf the game doesn't teleport me right next to the boss room or wherever is the most convenient to the player???

A tale as old of time of things that Dark Souls/FromSoft got showered praise for by pseudo-intellectuals Redditors with a gay crush for Matthewmatosis but whenever they find the exact same thing in another game they cry and soil their pants.
Also

hurr durr THERE IS AN OPTION THAT IS CLEARLY STRONGER THAN THE OTHERS IN A GAME WITH RPG ELEMENTS, THIS IS LITERALLY UNHEARD OF AND BAD GAME DESIGN

Not even gonna bother looking for your post to quote it but fuck you as well you fucking retard.

Yeah that's great, now what's the solution for going there instead of leaving?

It's a completely different style of gameplay compared to iX1. If you wanted more of the same I can see why it would put you off, but if you actually engage with it it's really fun. Learning the boss fights in iX2 was some of the most fun I've had in a 2D action game.

I have no idea why you're running defense for such a painfully mediocre to bad metroidvania and feel the need to bring up completely unrelated games, reddit, and ecelebs. All you're missing are slop and trannies and you'd be the perfect Anon Babble poster.

Prove how what anything I say is wrong or suck my cock faggot.

this fast-paced castlevania knockoff game has similar design choices a slow paced 3D action RPG game that don't work together at all, why don't people like it when other games are liked??????

what should i put on it?

Thunder element, Cost double, Power Charge, +1 luck

I have to go to new unknown places for the first time

maybe metroidvanias aren't for you

It's remarkable how many similarities there are between iX and Grim Guardians

The desire to make a third game in the main series exists but it isn't working out

Action focused spinoff gets made to tide fans over

First game is advertised as being disconnected from the original series and hides a bunch of stuff pre-release, but surprise it's closely related

Second game focuses much more on a new setting with minimal returning characters

Second game has a rushed and buggy launch due to most of its dev time overlapping with the company being focused on a different huge project

And similar to how iX2 was a much more "classic" style game, Kirika's gun was originally going to manually fire small shots and charge up for shotgun blasts.
That said, I still liked SotD. The core ideas are mostly good, it just needed more time in the oven, unlike iX2 where not only did the pizza need more time, but the recipe itself needed to be revised.

look at the shop for funny double/triple skill weapons you can put in it

As far as I understand, Intis tried to turn it into their own Megaman Zero series. But that pizza cutter ruined everything. It is too slow and too weak and if you hold attack button a bit too long it start spinning dealing absolutely miserable damage and stunlocking Copen. I still can't believe they nerfed bulit dash for this.

You absolute fucking illiterate retard, the entire problem is that you need to keep going through the same places you've already explored.

Company fanboys gonna fanboy

You're not supposed to use the pizza cutter as much as you think, so no it's not Megaman Zero. You use it during a stage where you can quick drop and quickly take out an enemy, and on bosses only when they leave an opening and it's very brief. I don't know why you're so fixated on the pizza cutter move when the main gameplay is making efficient use of your one dash and resetting it, and knowing when to tag.
Just go lookup any no-hit boss vid on youtube

A robe and wizard hat.

young cute asian girls

big as fuck tits

not a hag or muscle shit

it's not the reddit safe horny

Cost double

Why?

Well, it seems I attached to the bulit dash way too much.

What does having fast travel points in useless out of the way locations do to improve the game? How does walking through the same areas over and over again make the game better?

I was being a bit of a jokester, don't put any of those on it. The grenades are fine vs random stage monsters but by the time you get the death grenade you can already just dash through them so it's whatever. The knives and boomerang are the best vs bosses.

Would you rather them not be there at all so you needed to walk the entire distance every time instead? The way they are currently still saves a ton of time, so I honestly have no clue what you fags want out of it.

you can finish it, but you lose on almost all Kamizono interactions. This game is terrible without them.

That's GG2.

It could be worse

what do you want

I want the map to be designed in an inteligent way, so I can have shortcuts to places instead of dead ends.

There's plenty of shortcuts in it though. Did you even play it?

thats for misha not a grenade

Ooooh nooo! There is only one fast travel point in the entire area! And it's somewhere out of the way! Gasp! Does this mean that now I have to go through the same area over and over again?!

This is disgusting! As if I'm playing a metroidvania or something!

There's plenty of useless shortcuts you unlock too late in it though. Did you even play it?
Stop with this stupid gaslighting. I was hyped for this game, I PAID for it. I 100% it soon after relase. I feel cheated because game is unfinished scrambled mess that could be amazing but ended up being mid.

It's because interest points are TOO far away from their warps, leading to minutes wasted backtracking. if the warp was placed near a shortcut then people wouldnt be complaining as much

Oh boy i sure love the two extra level connectors in dead sea and ancient battlefield you'll never use

Oh, okay then. Now it makes sense.

So, uhh... Recently there was a stream on Inti Creates channel on youtube. And looking at the comments I suppose there was no news about upcoming updates, DLC or whatever.

Is it over?

Responding by sperging out and yelling at straw men doesn't make you sound any more reasonable.

Too early to say, the already confirmed upcoming online co-op update isn't even out yet.

Xbox is a retarded company when it comes to inti. For context, they're the reason Gal Gun is basically dead.

I don't think we're getting more than bugfixes until the retail version is out.

My apologies. That was obviously sarcasm and probably I should have rephrase it in a better way.

Inti usually has terrible follow-through for their games. I think Card-en-ciel is the only game they had serious follow-up on.

Dragon Marked For Death got updates for a while.
I think DMFD bombing as hard as it did was probably a big morale hit to them since it was probably their biggest 2D production of the last decade.

how is ix2 not listed? there is no fucking way that thing wasn't a flop, I refuse to believe it

Have they made online games before? They are probably facing a ton of bugs trying to do this smoothly

I think DMFD bombing as hard as it did

Anon, DMFD is their 3rd best selling game.

then where is the DMFD 2 that we deserve?
though seeing as how they couldn't even balance gal guardians 2's light rpg mechanics I don't have any hope that a DMFD 2 would be any better than the first

Gunvolt 3 also had an "update campaign" like Card-en-Ciel where they added new content and modes via free patches.

Gunvolt 3 also got a big update campaign, but while it did some things to address issues people had with the base game it didn't solve most of them.

CnC (so awful its PvP achievements were patched out)
DMFD (horrible desync even in local play)
MN9 (genuinely unplayable)
MM10 (didn't even make it to the final build)

so, yeah, not looking good

then where is the DMFD 2 that we deserve?

Ask Marvelous, they own the publishing rights to the IP.

And at least a few of their other games had online leaderboards too like Gunvolt 2 and 3.

Because it released in 2022?

Then why was it always dead online?

They started development for it back on the fucking PSP but ended up releasing on the Switch first.

then where is the DMFD 2 that we deserve?

Probably locked in the same dead Marvelous IPs warehouse where they keep Senran Kagura.

Yohane the Parhelion was perfectly fine even if short. I don't understand how they dropped the ball so hard with Servants of the Dark.

Because it's a fucking boring grindfest with worse character building than Dragon's Crown

they could make an off brand clone with similar gameplay
just need to make sure they get that same artist again

Even with all its issues SotD is a considerably better game than Yohane.

in fritos we trust

Absolutely not. SotD's level design, interface, subweapons, and fast travel are all far worse. It's the worst Inti Creates game I've played by far.

subweapons

worse than the game that locks you into long animations for every attack, even in mid-air

I've never played yohane, but I looked it up and there's very clear room transitions on the map, AND a real minimap so it's already steps ahead of SotD, oh and its enemy roster isnt entirely reused sprites from a previous game either.

Yohane was thoroughly boring and unremarkable.
SotD is remarkable in how many stupid decisions they made with it.

entirely reused sprites from a previous game

Why lie? There's a decent amount of new enemy types introduced in SotD.

Yohane is a very stiff game from movement to attacks, it looks really nice but doesn't feel good to control.

How many new ones? I'd have to actually play the first game again to double check, but there can't be that many new ones. Maybe the goblin archers?

From the top of my head:

hooded demons with a shield

those cunts that come out of the ground and swing at you

the flying jack o lanterns

goblins

goblin archers

the plants

those ghosts in the dead sea

Probably forgetting a few.

Those hooded goat shield demons are definitely in the first game.

it just has slower paced combat overall but there were plenty of fast attack options. far better than managing loot trash just to make a broken weapon to trivialize the game

Also:

slimes

skeletons (or was it zombies?)

teleporting woodlouse-wizards

(not) frozen assassins

lanterns with 3 new patterns

I think he was talking about the big ones with magic wand or whatever.

Those zombies are not new either. They're the first fucking enemy you fight in the first game. It's gonna be real awkard if I boot it up and find even more they just took from it.

Think SotD is in the upper half of Inti games. Not like BMZ3, Mega Man Zero/ZX, or Gunvolt 2 good, but still pretty good. Probably on par with the iX games or Circle of the Moon. Definitely better than Demon Purge.

Apparently people think it's shit.

Am I the weird one?

I saw someone in youtube chat on live say there are 2 bosses short but Inti didn't reply

Wait what? If I remember correctly, the very first zombies in the first game have a hood and in SotD the very first zombies looks like skeletons with goat skull or something.

how did this game get rabid shill defenders that rival gachatard cultists

It's a strong game conceptually but it runs out of steam a little too fast
CotM1&2 and DP simply have more to do in them

I don't remember fighting just skeletons in SotD, maybe I'm retarded but everything kind of just blurs together after you dash into all the obstacles.

Am I the weird one?

Yes because you think BMZ3 is in the upper half.

It's not shit. It's not even bad. But it should have been much-much better than this.

Why do people shit on the level design?
It's really cool how open ended the game is. The moment you get the double jump you've got over three major regions that are all open to you, and even more sub areas. And even further areas beyond the big ones.
It's open ended and with tons of treasure to find around the corners.

It's really fun and exciting.
I don't get it. It might just be my favourite part of the game, but in these threads haters keep repeating it as supposedly one of the biggest flaws somehow. How?

I loved the first Gal Guardians, but this one is kind of a letdown. The characters, scenario, music, and level design all seem worse. It's a step up from Yohane, at least.

I think it's mainly It's cool how you have fast movement from the start but getting around isn't always the smoothest thing. Reminds me a bit of Harmony of Dissonance with all the zigzagging you had to do in that game but not as bad.

Oh boy I love finding treasure like.... random subweapon I already have. All of the major zones are locked past the ice area with the exception of the desert. The only notable loot you can get early are the couple of treasure chests around the flower boss which give the big spider and firewheel.

Because its good.

Too much cut content. There aren't any amazing rewards from secret areas, they are mostly empty or with shit treasure like hp potion. Big chunk of revieved NPCs are useless. ZuZu baerly appears. Gardenia is even worse because by the point you fight her, her short, censored scene is longer then the fight itself.
Basically we expected a lot from the game and got let down hard. I hope other anons won't get their hopes up, so they won't get disappointed.

Inti cannot design fun levels to save their lives
Gunvolt level design is trash
DMFD level design is trash

Gunvolt level design is trash

Midwit take, the level design in that series is great for what its going for, which score chasing, which mainly revolves around combat and enemy encounters.

I can only feel that your assessment must be coming from a place of having barely played any metroidvania games at all, because it's nothing special in regards to freedom of exploration, and compared to the games in the genre that are widely praised, it's too restrictive if anything.
Still, the freedom isn't the problem, it's everything else. Useless fast travel points, annoying one way paths, a badly made map with holes in between rooms where there are pitfalls that sometimes don't even line up and which doesn't let you swap between the separated area maps, copy pasting the sand worm boss four times, it's also full of empty dead ends where there's just nothing there which makes it feel half-finished, pic related. You also don't really find anything that feels meaningful around the game world other than souls, since you get your handful of exploration abilities from levelling up back at base. And also the Kamizonos randomly showing up around the game world with no indication of where they go next is annoying as fuck.

which score chasing,

I know, its a shitty game with too much idol wank for my taste.

ahem

You personally not liking it doesn't make it shit.

I'm just angry at inti for wasting my time with that god awful late game in DMFD.
If I had energy I would try to mod the ability to swap characters at any time, this would make the game actually fun and enjoyable.

Oh boy I love finding treasure like.... random subweapon I already have.

Treasures like new jumps or power boosts at full health, or DP recovery on kills and such, etc.
Why pretend like these aren't significant upgrades?
And fuck, even in terms of sub weapons, the game even has you discover things like the wall breaking lance by exploring.

I forgot about the relic coins because they're so concentrated at the start of the game. Honestly.