he sadly went for a girlboss character i instantly refunded of course.

The first Axion Verge on the other hand is a nice game

it has beautiful artstyle and music and also interesting worldbuilding (although not clearly explained) that gives it some staying-in-brain power

It's a quality metroidvania. Not outstanding, but worth your time if you are a fan of the genre.

What you need to know:
1. Barely any connection to the 1st game, for good and ill.
2. Use your map, make reminders.
3. Not a lot of secret, breakable walls for a metroidvania. Instead, you tend to access hard to reach areas by entering "the breach" a lower res world that overlaps with the main world. You can jump back and forth (with some limits. These form the more satisfying parts of exploration for the game.

Some notes.
1. Fast Travel. Dear devs, thank you for having it. However, the slow animation that plays every time you reform from your nano-cloud when you fast travel is not welcome. For emphasis, please watch the animation when you reach the end of a sentence. I expect you will be insane or patch the issue before Ishmael gets on the Pequod.
2. Above, plus a slightly faster movement speed would go a long way making getting around more fun.
3. Some abilities feel half-baked. In that they get used a bit then are forgotten. This can be late game abilities that don't really play into backtracking, or early stuff like the blast that makes some blocks break or fall. That get's used for a while then completely forgotten about. Even the final pass through gates ability felt lack-luster. There really weren't that many gates or that much reason to use it to fly.

And at 13 hours it's pretty short. 100% would take longer but I'm not motivated to do so.