Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet

Been playing this a little bit on PC (cursing the thoroughly obnoxious Games For Windows requirement every time; having to launch steam was bad enough, having to log into both is REALLY ANNOYING) and have gotten far enough to splash into some underwater sections.

Which may have been a bad idea on the dev's part, as it suddenly makes the comparison to Aquaria inevitable in my mind. They are, after all, both fun cool stylish 'metroidvania' things where you are flying/swimming around instead of walking and jumping. On the other hand, neat as this thing looks, drawing the comparison makes it jump out to me that Aquaria was better in most respects.

If the title screen is accurate about how much of the game I've covered, this thing can't be very long. And while it's cool to fly around in, it's sort of lacking in even a pretense of a plot. I mean sure there was a tiny bit of setup at the beginning but it pretty much vanished immediately, along with all my fellow ships.

It also seems a good bit easier than Aquaria, at least when you're not doing something insanely stupid by trying to use the wrong tool for a section. This isn't really a bad thing, as you may recall me sulking that Aquaria's difficulty seemed at odds with its potential joy of exploration, but... in a way it's the inverse. Aquaria was a pretty place where I wanted to spend more time just chillin'. This place LOOKS so dark and scary that it's surprising to me that it hasn't, so far, presented much of a challenge.