Ask for the shape of the challenge.

You can save anywhere for a resource cost, which turns the escape sequences into a planning problem: no soul links means no checkpoints, and the game does not hand them back.

Frame-perfect demands wrapped in the kindest failure state in games — you will die two thousand times and each one costs you half a second.

Two players, one screen, no difficulty setting. The hard part is coordination, and the game restarts you both a second after it goes wrong.

Combat is scored on the beat and will still let you win off it. Playing to the rhythm is the difference between a rank and a mess.

NES difficulty with modern checkpoints — and you can smash the checkpoints for gold, which is the game’s whole attitude in one mechanic.

Momentum platforming with hitboxes that reward commitment and punish hesitation. Funky Mode exists because the late levels ask for a great deal.

A metroidvania that fights with summoned spirits on cooldowns rather than a weapon, so encounters are about rotation and spacing instead of stamina.

One hit kills, restarts land in under a second, and momentum is mandatory — stopping to think is usually the thing that kills you.

Generous by design and confident enough not to pretend otherwise. The optional speedrun levels at the end are the only place it bares its teeth.

The main path is generous and the last stretch of Moons is not — the hard version of this game is entirely opt-in and clearly signposted.