My gosh, this game is amazing once you get the hang of it. There's so many elements to learn about, and there's SO many stylish tricks you can pull off if you stick with it for a few hours, really starting to understand the mechanics. It's like falling in love with Spelunky all over again.

The combat is tight and smooth, and the environment is full of creative ways to turn the tides of almost any kerfuffle you get yourself into! It's a lot to take in, so give yourself some time to make sense of things. It took me almost 5 hours to start getting past the 2nd area, but I'm starting to really love this beautiful game now that things are clicking together and I'm starting to understand the roles of different equipment.

Pretty soon, you'll be whipping enemies into traps and hurling around dozens of objects. By the time you start learning to protect your fragile life, there are a plethora of subtle ways to refine your speed, and that's when things get really unpredictable and interesting.

Then, when you start to get better, you'll speed slide over a spike trap, bursting open a door where you explode a gas lamp and gobs of flaming kerosene land all around you while 3 enemies close in on you. All of a sudden, you're improvising, and you can really get creative. With your bare hands, you can shove enemies back into the instruments of death that so bothered you in the beginning. You can use your whip to pull enemies or push them into spikes and pits and poison. You can spot a grapple point and retreat while your enemies burn.

And then there's the equipment, every single piece has a purpose and many encourage you to adjust your playstyle accordingly, some of them shocking or poisoning enemies and allowing you to charge in aggressively, and some of them shields or invisibility that allow you assess a sticky situation before striking. Some of them make you immune to effects you learned to fear and avoid. Remembering what everything does is a bit of a task, but you can bring up a description of every item with the touch of a button, so it's easy to remind yourself of what powerful tools you have at your disposal.

My only complaint is that the targeting can be a bit sticky sometimes, and that can ruin your best laid plans.

Overall, this is a beautifully designed game that challenges you to be creative under pressure, and teaches you to think before you leap. I'll be playing it for a long time.