Infinitevania Review Summary

Excellent gameplay and metroidvania design with satisfying boss fights, but frustrating jumping puzzles, multiple bugs, and a short length hold it back.

Full of references to classics: The game is packed with references, secrets, and Easter eggs, particularly to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and other classic Metroidvanias. This homage is appreciated by fans and well-placed.

Excellent gameplay and combat: Gameplay and combat are described as satisfying, fast, precise, smooth, and well-made. Players appreciate the comfortable feel, excellent movement, and tight controls that make combat enjoyable and responsive.

Great metroidvania design: The game is praised for executing metroidvania mechanics well, with an interconnected world, evolving abilities, engaging exploration, and rewarding progression. The level design features sequence breaks and a well-designed map with easy navigation and fast travel.

Satisfying boss fights: Boss fights are consistently praised as satisfying, impressive, well-balanced, challenging, and memorable. The final boss provides a proper challenging finale, and many players highlight the enjoyable difficulty and rhythm.

Great story and narrative: The story is praised as good, incredible, and intriguing with an amazing plot twist and ending. Dialogues are intelligent and self-aware, and characters are charismatic and engaging.

Jumping puzzles are frustrating: There are many meaningless jumping puzzles and traps, with enemies appearing after jumps and unfair deaths on precision platforms. Missing a key to look down forces blind leaps, leading to frustration.

Multiple bugs exist: There are various bugs, including wall entry glitches, inaccessible areas, infinite loading from demo saves, and a rollback effect when entering some rooms. These bugs disrupt gameplay.

Game is too short: The game is short, with 5-6 hours for 100% completion and about 8-10 hours total. Content is limited with 6 areas and roughly 2 bosses each, making the experience average.

Level design is tedious: The first area has some traps, the map is uninteresting with no exploration thrill, side paths feel forced, and collecting items is long and tedious. These design flaws reduce enjoyment.

Game lacks originality: The game is seen as a bad copy of other games, offering nothing special or new. There is only one weapon with no secondary weapon, limiting variety.

Responsive controls and movements: Movement mechanics are described as responsive and enjoyable, with tight controls enabling precision platforming and agile movement after upgrades. Features like dash, ledge grabbing, double jump, and pogo jumping are highlighted.

Metroidvania genre and formula: The game is frequently described as a Metroidvania that follows established genre conventions, with many references to classic games like Hollow Knight, Castlevania, and Super Metroid. Players appreciate the competent execution of the formula and the abundance of secrets.

Exploration and interconnected world: The game features an interconnected world with extensive exploration, backtracking, side paths, and an inverted castle area. The map design encourages discovery and sequence breaks.

Challenging and progressive difficulty: Players note the challenging difficulty, which is progressive with traversal puzzles, enemy placement, and platforming segments. The difficulty is seen as a positive aspect, not a cakewalk.

Progression and ability systems: Players mention an evolving ability system involving items, engravings, spirits, and spells that gate progression. The system includes space constraints and a heal ability, though some feel the fireball is limited to opening doors.

Optimization and stability issues: Players report poor optimization, constant freezing, and crashes making the game unplayable on some systems. One player experienced three crashes on Steam Deck within 2.5 hours.

Mixed performance on handhelds: While some players report smooth performance on Steam Deck and Rog Ally X with SteamOS, others experience crashes on Steam Deck, indicating inconsistent optimization across handheld devices.

Excellent value: Multiple players agree the game offers great value for its price, with statements endorsing it as well worth the cost. This reflects strong overall satisfaction with the purchase.

Strong general endorsement: Multiple reviews give broad recommendations such as 'highly recommend' and 'fully recommend the purchase.' These high-level endorsements suggest a broadly positive reception.

Recommend for metroidvania fans: Several players specifically recommend the game to fans of the metroidvania genre, often citing classic titles like Castlevania. This indicates the game successfully appeals to genre enthusiasts.

Short length warning: Some reviews caution that the game is relatively short, around 8-10 hours, which may disappoint those seeking longer metroidvania experiences. This is an important caveat for potential buyers.

Best Brazilian game played: A single reviewer states this is one of the best Brazilian games they have played, highlighting its quality within a regional context. This is a strong but isolated endorsement.

Game completion: 5.5h.

The game is fun from the very beginning, with players enjoying the exploration and progression without any reported early friction.

Metroidvania Devotee: Exploration and combat focused, appreciates fluid animation and genre tropes. Motivation: To enjoy a well-crafted metroidvania experience. Stance: buy.

Value-Cautious Buyer: Cautious and analytical about purchases. Motivation: To get good value for money. Stance: deep sale.

Discerning Indie Critic: Critical and analytical, values innovation and execution. Motivation: To play polished, original indie games. Stance: no buy.

Steam Deck: The game generally runs smoothly on Steam Deck with positive feedback on performance and controls. However, a notable user experienced three crashes within 2.5 hours, indicating stability issues that align with the 'Broken' score range despite save points mitigating frustration.

Linux and Proton: The game runs well on Linux/Proton based on these reviews. One user reports smooth performance on SteamOS without bugs, while another notes occasional crashes on Steam Deck that are mitigated by frequent save points. No heavy tweaks or blockers are mentioned, indicating a solid out-of-box experience.