Some time ago the developer of this game used to have a YouTube channel where he talked about obscure Japanese video games and other rarities, it was very informative and presented in an accessible way. So, when he decided to become a game dev, I had the idea to support him in his venture by buying the upcoming game.
Unfortunately the final product is not something that I enjoyed as well... it's a puzzle platformer where you have to match the color of your attacks to the enemies and to elements of the environment in order to defeat them and pass the platforming challenges. It would be nice if this were more puzzler than platformer, however the foundation of the game is one of those difficult 80s/90s titles that leave you almost no margin of error. So not only the game is hard in itself, but it becomes even more frustrating with the puzzle element that makes everything clunkier. Not to mention that different attacks are not just mapped to different buttons, but to fighting game-style button and movement combos just to make it even more unintuitive.
Even with the tutorial at the beginning and selecting the lowest difficulty possible, the game feels barely playable because of the rock-paper-scissors scheme that makes the gameplay awkward, not to mention that the game even punishes you when using the magic spells, by shaving seconds off the timer and making everything even more frustrating. I had to drop it at one-third of the total length even if the controller was working correctly, because I just wasn't having fun at all.
Feels like that the dev is a "pro gamer" and spent so much time tweaking the game to make it even more challenging for himself, that he forgot he also needs to sell it to people of average ability, and not only to his circle of hardcore fanatics living in the past (also I never gave a ♥♥♥♥ about Valis, but that's another story).
In any case, I wishlisted his upcoming project too (a vertical shmup this time, still retro though) and I hope that it doesn't come out as obtuse, frustrating and un-fun as this one.