[Review] Nothing Beyond this Point punches well outside its weight class
> Nothing Mid Beyond this Point
Why
- Genuinely unique approach to a metroidvania
- Basic but very evocative art style
- Combat system is a cool concept well executed
- Story is suprisingly interesting
- It just has the juice, couldn't put it down despite a frustrating start
Why Not
- Exploration can be painful until you get certain abilities
- Giving the second boss anti heal was certainly a choice
Impressions
This is not what I expected at all from a 580yen Metroidvania which looks like they didn't bother hiring a background artist. Nothing Beyond this Point is a great Metroidvania and perhaps more importantly; a genuinely different one.
Rather the the typical side-scrolling action of a Hollow Knight or Nine Sols, NBTP adopts the room by room layout and bullet hell/twin stick shooter design of Enter the Gungeon. Another similarity to Gungeon can be found in the myriad obscure secrets you can unlock if you pay close enough attention to your surroundings and try different things. I'd recommend paying especially close attention to anything map shaped on the ground, as you'll be spending the vast majority of the early game hopelessly lost.
That's because the game really leads into its 'eldritch void' setting. Most exits from a given room will typically just loop you back to the opposite side when accessed, which opens up some fun combat possibilities but also makes for a sometimes tedious process of trial and error exploration. To the dev's credit they have addressed this; real exits are often marked by some decoration on the border of the room. But I still couldn't stop myself compulsively trying every angle, looking for frequent-enough-you-can't-ignore-them secret rooms. There's a ping ability you can pick up which significantly accelerates this process while your obscured map keeps the feeling of exploration alive, but it's pretty easy to miss until well into the game. If I was going to make one suggestion it'd be to gently guide players toward that ability much earlier.
No notes on the combat though; it's creative and well executed. Your health is represented by rods orbiting you, which also power your ranged and special attacks. So attacking (other than in melee) consumes health, which would be a big problem if not for your ability to heal endlessly. It requires standing still to channel thought (at least without upgrades), so combat has a great rhythm of firing off attacks then finding a window to heal up between enemy aggression. Giving the the second boss (for me at least) anti-heal was certainly a choice though; that coupled with his endless littering of the arena with spikes lead me to take a break from the game and play Dark Souls 3 for a more relaxing experience. Eventually I figured out you can dash through the anti-heal projectile to avoid it, but the dialogue telegraphing that is not exceptionally easy to see with everything going on. Most bosses have a gimmick like this, though the rest are considerably less annoying and better telegraphed IMO. Overall combat was great once I stopped trying to melee literally everything to death because I was terrified of burning my health to attack, and stayed that way right up to the final boss.
Surprisingly for a solo-dev project, the miscellaneous stuff is pretty great as well. The art-style and soundtrack are certainly minimalist but very effective at evoking the reactions they're clearly aiming for, and I don't think I encountered a single bug in my playthrough. The Metroidvania aspects mostly come from ability progression, but if you pay close attention to hints and think creatively (or you're just on a second playthrough) there are plenty of skips available. The overall story also surprised me with its quality; the protagonist actually has an interesting character arc and the vague hints of lore are interesting enough to provide some motivation. Every character (including deities) mostly talking like a normal person despite their circumstances is a bit weird at first but circles back around to charming after a while.
Definitely give this one a try if you're at all curious; I did it on a whim and got a fantastic ~16 hours out of it. There's a lot more depth and quality here than you might expect for a game this cheap.