Carrion

A very highly rated puzzle metroidvania today - Carrion. I think the high ratings (rank 545 on Steam, as of writing), as well as being published by Devolver Digital, who generally publishes games that are at least decent, are what made me try it. I was left quite disappointed though.

Carrion is a game where you play a mass of flesh and tentacles that crawls around vents and shafts, eating people to increase your size, and finding a few new abilities along the way. The game takes place in a series of rooms that form an interconnected map, and the exploration aspect is a bit like a metroidvania. However, it's not a platformer, and you're basically allowed freeform movement as long as a wall isn't blocking your way. While enemies do shoot at you, they're not really a big threat, and the "puzzles" you have to solve to gain access to new areas aren't particularly difficult. As such, running through the game is quite straightforward and rather fast, at about 4-6 hours for the whole thing.

I'm somewhat surprised by the positive ratings, as I found the game to have a whole lot more style than substance. The game is both easy and simple, with >90% of stuff being handled by your mouse, so it's neither fun by being challenging, nor fun by being mechanically engaging. I just felt myself going through room after room, and very quickly growing bored of it. So, really, I don't see a reason to recommend it.