Info about Silver Axe - The Honest Elf:

Official game description:
Introducing "Silver Axe: The Honest Elf" - a classic 2D action game that revolves around challenging boss battles set in an ancient fairy tale forest. As players fight off insomniac animals and embark on a journey to awaken the goddess, they will discover a world full of imagination and creativity.  
Based on Aesop's fable "The Honest Woodcutter," the game offers players an opportunity to face off against formidable foes, all while reclaiming the goddess's golden heart and unlocking the hidden power of the silver axe.  
Throughout the game, players will complete missions given to them by forest residents, gaining invaluable assistance in breaking through challenging levels. By gathering information on their enemies' weaknesses, using secret passages to launch surprise attacks, and organizing teammates for a free-spirited playthrough as an elf, players will experience a smooth and exciting gameplay experience.  
The game offers players the choice to rely on the assistance of forest residents to overcome obstacles, or to be an arrogant elf who relies on ancient powers to sweep away all obstacles. Each choice will take the story on a different path, ensuring that no two playthroughs are the same. Get ready to immerse yourself in the fascinating world of "Silver Axe: The Honest Elf" and embark on an adventure like no other!  
**Game Features**  
*   A unique magic system that allows players to freely cast skills and spells by combining four buttons.  
*   Boss battles are the core of the level design, providing an uninterrupted combat experience.  
*   A fairy tale adventure full of imagination, where players can interact with cute and humorous animal residents.  
*   Smooth and challenging action design that tests players' gaming skills.  
*   Multiple branching storylines and endings, allowing players to awaken the goddess and uncover the secrets hidden deep in the forest.

Release date: 4 Mar, 2023

Categories: 2D Platformer, Metroidvania, Boss Rush, Spell-based Combat, Single-player Story, Choice-based Narrative, Multiple Endings


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Overall positive game experience (weight 0.53): Players generally find the game to be a high-quality, enjoyable, and unique experience, especially for an early access title. It offers diverse gameplay, smooth controls, and a well-structured design that keeps players engaged.
- Engaging and balanced boss battles (weight 0.51): Boss battles are a highlight, offering challenging yet fair encounters. The game provides various ways to manage difficulty, including side quests to weaken bosses, learning enemy patterns, and utilizing late-game skills, making it accessible for different player skill levels.
- Innovative elemental skill system (weight 0.37): The elemental skill combination system is a core strength, offering innovative and diverse combat options. Players enjoy experimenting with different elemental fusions and skill progressions, which allows for varied playstyles and a satisfying sense of power in the late game.
- Charming and unique art style (weight 0.26): The game's art style is widely praised for its unique, cute, and fresh aesthetic, often described as a children's picture book or graffiti. While initially perceived as rough by some, it quickly becomes appealing and contributes to a pleasant, immersive atmosphere.
- Captivating and humorous story (weight 0.25): The story is highly engaging, praised for its humor, captivating plot twists, and well-developed characters. Dialogues are lively and interesting, contributing to a coherent and immersive narrative that players find very enjoyable.
- Solid Metroidvania design (weight 0.09): The game is well-received by fans of the Metroidvania genre, offering classic design elements, a complete world view, and satisfying exploration. Players appreciate its adherence to the genre's core principles while incorporating unique features.
- Overpowered Earth Shield exploit (weight 0.08): A specific combination of the Earth Shield and Cross item creates an extremely powerful, potentially infinite invincibility exploit. This allows players to easily defeat bosses, indicating a balance issue with this particular skill synergy.
- Clear and explorable map (weight 0.07): The map design is functional and user-friendly, making navigation easy and preventing players from getting lost. It also features many hidden elements, encouraging exploration.
- Fitting and pleasant music (weight 0.07): The background music is consistently praised for fitting the game's themes and moods, enhancing the overall experience. It contributes positively to the atmosphere in various game areas.

Common complaints:
- Clunky and Unbalanced Combat (weight 0.99): Players frequently report that combat feels clunky, unresponsive, and poorly balanced, especially during boss encounters. Issues include floaty controls, input lag, lack of invincibility frames, and bosses with high damage, health, and aggressive attack patterns that offer little opportunity for healing or counter-attacks. The game's difficulty spikes, particularly with multi-boss fights and those requiring pre-weakening, contribute to a frustrating experience.
- No Invincibility Frames (weight 0.11): A significant number of players highlight the complete absence of invincibility frames during dodges or other defensive maneuvers. This design choice severely limits effective evasion strategies and makes many encounters feel unfair, as players are constantly vulnerable to damage.
- Problematic Achievement System (weight 0.1): Players report issues with achievements, noting that some conflict with each other or can be missed permanently if certain actions are taken or not taken, often requiring a full game restart. This creates frustration for completionists.
- Lack of Post-Game Content (weight 0.08): The post-game experience is lacking, with no New Game+ option, replayable CGs, or additional rewards. The ending is described as abrupt and empty, failing to provide a satisfying conclusion or insight into the world's future.
- Stiff Jumping Mechanics (weight 0.07): Character movement, especially jumping and wall jumping, is described as stiff and unresponsive. Players feel the wall jumping mechanics are weak and lack fluidity.
- Excessive Unvoiced Dialogue (weight 0.05): The game features a significant amount of dialogue, particularly at the start, which lacks voice acting. This can reduce immersion and become tedious for players who prefer to skip text.
- Incomplete Translations (weight 0.05): The game suffers from incomplete translations, specifically with the Japanese localization only covering the first half. This is disappointing for non-English speakers who wish to fully understand the story.
- Minimalist Protagonist Design (weight 0.04): The protagonist's design is considered too minimalist and 'cute,' which some players feel clashes with the game's more serious opening. There's also a desire for character customization options like outfit changes.
- Challenging Early Game Progression (weight 0.04): The early game can be challenging due to a lack of effective rolling skills and the rapid acquisition of skills. Some players find the 'lifeline' side quests, intended to help, still too difficult.

Gameplay feedback:
- Boss-focused Metroidvania experience (weight 0.25): The game is primarily a boss-rush experience, emphasizing frequent and well-designed boss battles over extensive exploration. While it incorporates Metroidvania elements, the core gameplay loop revolves around combat encounters, drawing comparisons to titles like Hollow Knight in its combat feel and mechanics.
- Fluid controls and platforming (weight 0.22): The game features crisp and fluid controls for its 2D platforming and action, allowing for flexible movement, precise dodging, and wall jumping. Basic actions like jumping, attacking, and dodging form the foundation of the gameplay.
- Challenging, fixed difficulty (weight 0.21): The game presents a moderate to high difficulty, particularly in boss battles, with no adjustable difficulty settings. The difficulty curve is progressive, but specific bosses like the Queen Bee or Thunder Ox are noted for their challenge, especially for no-support achievements.
- Dynamic boss difficulty and support (weight 0.19): Boss encounters are designed with a unique progression system where initial defeats or completing side quests can influence their difficulty. Players can engage in prerequisite quests to weaken bosses or receive support, making subsequent attempts more manageable.
- Early Access with limited content (weight 0.12): The game is currently in Early Access, with only a portion of its content released, primarily covering the first chapter. The full game is expected to offer more content and a longer playtime, indicating that the current experience is incomplete.
- Versatile silver axe combat (weight 0.12): The silver axe is a central weapon, capable of being charged and infused with elemental powers. This system allows players to enhance combat power and unlock new movements, making the axe a versatile tool in battle.
- Challenging true ending boss (weight 0.07): The true ending features a challenging and somewhat chaotic final boss encounter, which is a double boss fight combining two previous bosses. Players noted that these bosses lack regular attack patterns and continuously barrage the player without interruption.
- Elemental strategies simplify bosses (weight 0.06): Certain elemental combinations, particularly the earth element, can significantly simplify boss battles and even enable no-damage runs. Mastering skill utilization is key to managing boss encounters effectively.
- Unconventional dodge mechanics (weight 0.06): The dodge mechanic is unique, using separate buttons for front and back rolls, but it lacks invincibility frames and can collide with enemies. The backward dodge, while intended for escapes, can be impractical due to mid-air control loss and collision risks.
- Growth-oriented progression (weight 0.04): The game features a growth-oriented progression system where both players and monsters become stronger. Progression is tied to item buffs rather than traditional health potions or leveling, and gameplay involves fighting small monsters and clearing levels.

Performance notes:
- Excellent performance and optimization (weight 0.1): Players consistently report excellent performance, with fast load times and no significant bugs or frame drops. The game appears to be well-optimized, even running smoothly on older hardware.
- Slow map loading reported (weight 0.02): One player noted that map loading specifically was slow. This contrasts with other feedback, suggesting it might be an isolated incident or related to specific game sections.

Recommendations:
- Game is generally recommended (weight 0.36): Many players recommend the game, especially for fans of 2D action or Metroidvania genres, citing its value for money and overall decent experience. Some believe it has potential for greatness with more content and polish.
- High anticipation for future content (weight 0.2): Players express strong anticipation for future content, updates, and new works from the developers. They are willing to support richer and more complete future releases.
- Combat system needs improvement (weight 0.1): Players hope for improvements in the combat system, specifically less stiff attack animations, simpler spell activation methods (e.g., shortcut keys), and a rebalance of boss health to prevent them from feeling like 'sponges.' Some also suggest adding equipment or enhancement systems.
- Compared to Hollow Knight (weight 0.09): The game is frequently compared to Hollow Knight, with some players placing it in a similar tier while others suggest it doesn't quite measure up or offers a different experience.
- Gameplay tips provided (weight 0.06): Players offer advice on gameplay, such as the order to defeat bosses, the importance of side quests, and the need for fast reflexes and hand speed.
- Gamepad recommended for play (weight 0.04): Players recommend using a gamepad for a better experience, suggesting that keyboard controls might be less optimal.
- Improve writing and translation (weight 0.03): There is a specific request for the developers to hire better writers and translators, indicating issues with the game's narrative or localization quality.
- Achievement completion noted (weight 0.01): One player noted that their review was a 'full achievement commemoration,' indicating they completed the game thoroughly.

Other player notes:
- Metroidvania with fairy tale theme (weight 0.15): Players consistently describe the game as a Metroidvania, often noting its smaller scale and fairy tale aesthetic. It's seen as a good entry point for newcomers to the genre.
- Taiwanese indie development (weight 0.09): The game is recognized as a domestic Taiwanese production, developed by a small two-person team. This context often influences player perception of its quality and value.
- Poor marketing and visibility (weight 0.04): Some players believe the game suffered from poor marketing and low sales, leading to it being less visible on the platform. This suggests a desire for better promotion.
- Short game length (weight 0.04): The game offers a relatively short playtime, with estimates ranging from 4-8 hours for the demo/full story and 8-12 hours for the complete experience.
- Game has potential (weight 0.03): Players see great potential in the game, acknowledging that it is still under development, which implies hope for future enhancements.
- Reported bugs and glitches (weight 0.02): A player reported encountering specific bugs, including a game freeze and a boss jumping out of bounds, indicating potential technical issues.
- Death mechanic saves progress (weight 0.01): The game's death mechanic functions as a teleport to the last save point, effectively combining saving and respawning.
- Suggests more spells (weight 0.01): A player suggested adding more spells to the game, indicating a desire for increased combat variety or player abilities.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.27): Players felt satisfied by overcoming challenging boss battles, enjoying the overall gameplay and story, and appreciating smooth controls and innovative game mechanics. The sense of accomplishment from completing the game and achieving all achievements, alongside the game's accessibility and rich content, also contributed to this positive emotion.
- Disappointment (weight 0.18): Disappointment stemmed from various gameplay issues, including poor control feel, combat feedback, and dodge mechanics, which sometimes led to players abandoning the game. Other causes included short playtime, lack of New Game+, incomplete translations, and a perceived lack of immersion or originality in certain game elements like the map system or character design.
- Frustration (weight 0.16): Frustration was primarily caused by poor combat feel, clunky controls, and unbalanced game design, particularly concerning boss battles and overall difficulty. Issues like input lag, restricted movement, awkward spell input, and a lack of clear tutorials or save points near bosses also significantly contributed to player annoyance and frustration.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.11): Players experienced enjoyment from engaging boss strategies, compelling story, and well-designed skill systems. The game's art style, music, and overall atmosphere, combined with smooth combat and movement, contributed to a positive and accessible gaming experience.
- Hope (weight 0.05): Hope was consistently expressed regarding the game's future potential, with players looking forward to improvements, updates, and continued development from the creators.
- Excitement (weight 0.05): Excitement was generated by novel and diverse skill designs, challenging boss battles, and an engaging story. The overall enjoyable and surprising journey, combined with smooth controls and powerful combat combos, also contributed to this feeling.
- Annoyance (weight 0.02): Annoyance was caused by specific issues such as bothersome music, game bugs, and dislike of certain skill designs. Incomplete achievement localization also contributed to this negative feeling.
- Admiration (weight 0.02): Admiration was directed towards the small development team, particularly a two-person studio, for their achievement in creating a game with unique gameplay and impressive world-building and features.
- Anticipation (weight 0.02): Players felt anticipation for future content and the game's full release, indicating a desire for more of the game's offerings.
- Confusion (weight 0.02): Confusion arose from ambivalent feelings about spell casting mechanics, game bugs, and missing achievements, suggesting areas where the game's design or execution was unclear or flawed.
- Appreciation (weight 0.02): Appreciation was shown for the game's accessibility options, distinctive art style, and overall game design, highlighting aspects that players found particularly well-executed.
- Anger (weight 0.01): Anger was expressed due to a perceived lack of difficulty options and the feeling of wasted time on a game that became a chore, indicating a strong negative reaction to the game's challenge level and engagement.
- Curiosity (weight 0.01): Curiosity was piqued by specific in-game elements, such as 'the whale's smile,' and questions about future content and pricing, suggesting an interest in uncovering more about the game's lore and development.
- Surprise (weight 0.01): Surprise was noted regarding the game's high difficulty, indicating that the challenge level was unexpected by players.
- Pride (weight 0.01): Pride was felt by players due to the game being a Taiwanese production, suggesting a sense of national or regional accomplishment associated with the game's origin.
- Desire for improvement (weight 0.01): Players expressed a desire for improvement specifically regarding complex spell activation, indicating a need for more streamlined or intuitive mechanics in this area.
- Minor disappointment (weight 0.01): Minor disappointment was attributed to subpar graphics, suggesting that while not a major issue, the visual quality did not fully meet player expectations.
- Joy (weight 0.01): Joy was experienced through interesting dialogue and engaging NPC interactions, highlighting the positive impact of the game's narrative and character elements.
- Challenge (weight 0.01): The unfamiliar magic system presented a challenge to players, indicating a learning curve associated with this particular game mechanic.
- Interest (weight 0.01): Interest was generated by the game's story branches, suggesting that players were engaged by the narrative's potential for different paths and outcomes.}