Tails of Iron

Tails of Iron looks like it would be a bit like a side-scrolling Souls-like. But, really, it's more of a Metroidvania. Or perhaps not even that, and it's just a side-scrolling action RPG.
There is clearly some inspiration taken from these genres, with the game having a weight system, dodge rolling, blocking and parrying, and a slower, more calculated pace of combat. But I would say this is more general action RPG stuff, and it doesn't really have the core Souls-like features. The map is a series of interconnected rooms, but you don't really have that much platforming, or unlock that many new abilities and ways to progress to call it a Metroidvania. In fact, many systems are heavily simplified. There's no stamina, no level up system, fewer stats, differences in equipment are rather minor, and a few other such things.

At first, the game really looks great. The characters and environments fit very well stylistically. The narrator feels good to listen to. (Apparently it's Geralt from The Witcher, but I've never played it.) Combat does not devolve into spamming, but the lack of stamina is actually a welcome surprise. As a tradeoff, your dodge roll no longer makes you invincible, and enemies in general have 3 different types of attacks with different ways to not take damage from them. Yellow attacks can't be dodged through, as they will just hit you if you dodge into them, forcing you to either block or parry them. Red attacks can't be blocked (or parried), forcing you to dodge away from them. And other attacks don't have a color indicator, making them less telegraphed, but they can be both blocked or dodged. This sounded a lot worse to me at first, but it felt really good once I got into it. Infinite stamina meant I was never frustrated by it, and every time I got hit, I really felt like it was my immediate fault that could have been avoided with better reflexes or not spamming my own attacks.

But I feel like the biggest problem came with the bossfights. You see, they got a fourth type of attack, which was just "don't be near the place where I attack". It couldn't be blocked, and it wasn't as simple as just dodging through it. It required you to really know the bossfight, and where it was going to attack, which wasn't indicated. You just had to know. This made the fights really annoying, as the first several deaths no longer felt like your fault.
I would say that was the main reason I dropped the game, but looking back at it, it also just didn't have as much to offer as many similar games. It was pretty linear, there was little sense of progression, much less customization or specialization, and apparently the whole game was only about 8 hours, which is on the shorter side for games like this.

To sum it up, if you're looking for a simpler sort of side-scrolling action RPG, Tails of Iron might not be a bad choice. There are some fresh ideas here, it's rather polished and well-made, and I think that if re-doing bosses several times isn't going to be a problem for you, then the rest of the game is quite nice. There are no deep mechanics or character customization here, but it's a nice short RPG. Personally, I dropped it a bit too fast to feel comfortable recommending it, but it's far from bad.