Angel’s Gear is a 2D Metroidvania title that sees us play as a nameless soldier. Right off the bat, things don’t look too hopeful for us as we find ourselves in a landing craft and our comrades being cut down in a scene right out of the infamous D-Day. True to us being so unimportant as to lack a name, we soon get incapacitated far before doing anything useful. As all seems lost, the moon explodes, and out of it is birthed a Lovecraftian monster that lays waste to everything. In a totally understandable fashion, our protagonist faints from all this madness.
It is one heck of an intro and is where a majority of the story takes place. The rest predominantly consists of you trying to survive this new twisted world that the Moon Entity wrought. As you walk through these desolate lands, it won’t be long before coming across one of its monstrous creations and are forced to defend yourself. Luckily for us, our mere pistol and only weapon through this journey, is more than enough to kill anything you come across. Here is the downside. You have limited ammo and must be precise in your aiming as you only have a little to spare. Easier said than done with how aiming works here. It is not free-flowing. You have a strict 8-directional system where you must move your entire character if the enemy is not in shot.
Oddly enough, we only have access to our HUD a bit further in the game. This means we can’t see how much ammo we have or our health. Take on the first enemies you encounter like a world-ending threat, and you’ll be fine. This opening section is counterproductive in teaching the player to conserve ammo or how the melee system functions. Striking someone is a means to an end here. It does minor damage, but it has a chance of knocking them off their feet. Take that brief opportunity before they get back up to deliver a one-hit-kill stomp. Not only does that save you bullets, but it also rewards you with more ammo popping out of the meaty chunks that was once your foe. This is really fun, in theory. The problem comes in the form of how inconsistent it feels. Add to that, even if they will fall, it takes around a full second after hitting them that the animation takes place.
Our character has three hit points with all forms of enemy attacks causing the same damage. This effectively means you are three hits from death, whether it be a seemingly low-threat enemy or a boss fight. Dying will take you to the last coffin-like checkpoint you interacted with and reset all your progress. It is always like a breath of fresh air when encountering another of these coffin savepoints. Entering them also fills up all your ammo and health. If things are looking dicey, there is no shame in backtracking to a previous one rather than hoping another appears soon. Along with our ammo, we have three health potions that completely restore our health. Death will not be too common if you are careful. I wouldn’t call Angel’s Gear difficult, but few things will give you more anxiety than possibly missing a jump. There are no second chances against those death pits covering some platforming areas.
A pretty massive thing this title suffers from is that the world is not fun to traverse. In the Metroidvania genre, this is a big deal. Thanks to how levels are designed, I never look forward to backtracking. You spend far too much time slowly making your way up and down ladders. The sprinting jump you have has your character belly flop at the end, which is cute at first, yet kills any sense of speed or flow. Enemies permanently stay dead once you’ve killed them, meaning there is nothing to do in previously explored places. And in most areas, there is no music. We are instead treated with sounds such as wind or the patter of rain to immerse us into the world. I’m all for that, and enemies staying dead is also neat. It’s just that all that I’ve mentioned and more makes going through any area you’ve already been at a chore. Near the end of the game, you receive a trinket that fixes your bellyflop when sprint jumping. That alone almost negates my complaints, as you can now zip through places with a sense of flow. I believe it should have been placed far earlier into this journey.
When it comes to the large amounts of ladders, they tried to fix that too, around the mid-game point. You receive a power that grants you angel wings for an infinite height jump. It is a straight path up and will only give you control once your character smashes his head into a ceiling. Afterward, you have a brief moment to nudge your falling character towards solid ground or fall down to where you started. Not all ladders can be bypassed from it, and it takes too long to charge this jump, yet this skill is expertly placed right before the player needs to start backtracking in the world. Don’t get me wrong, this is a world well worth exploring. Angel’s Gear has no lack of content for as short as it is. You will continually encounter new enemies and zones the deeper you enter this dying planet. Some foes may even be able to kill you in a single hit. Once you learn that, it is a nerve-wracking event when something new runs at you, and you must carefully wait to take a shot.
Exploring all you can has many perks. There are all kinds of upgrades and abilities waiting for you. One of them is the armor pieces that effectively serve as another hitpoint to your total health. Another is the ability to hold more ammo at once, which is massive. Then you have other more substantial changes, such as different projectile types. For example, a bullet that tracks its target but does less damage. This may sound like a joke, but drawing your own world map on a piece of paper wouldn’t be a bad idea. It features an automap that doesn’t show anything of note, just the grid overlay of the entirety. No icons, no cutoff on a grid to indicate you haven’t explored a connecting room, and no red lines indicating a blocked-off path. You’ll have a lousy time if you ever forget what you were doing otherwise. There is no journal, and NPCs won’t repeat their lines once you’ve talked to them. It will be up to you to stumble back onto the correct path if you put Angel’s Gear down and return in a week.
Interestingly, there are at least two different endings depending on your actions. It mostly depends on how much help you offer the NPCs of the hub world. On the topic of replay value, there is no new game plus, and you are set to the last savepoint after beating the final boss. According to a developer post I saw, a hard mode is possible, so here’s hoping that comes to pass. As is, you can expect around two and a half hours of playtime if you are laser-focused on reaching the end. And what a few hours they were. Undoubtedly, it is a flawed game, but the strong art direction and atmosphere is well worth experiencing. Angel’s Gear tried many things and did most serviceable enough. My personal favorite was facing off against the surprisingly large number of bosses. It shines in those more focused scenarios, with everything more or less falling into place. Angel’s Gear is an interesting experimental take on the Metroidvania genre. If nothing else, I can’t say I’ve played anything quite like it.
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