Environmental Station Alpha
Environmental Station Alpha is absolute hidden gem on Steam. It seems like it hasn't gotten any press, possibly because of its retro-aesthetic or terrible name, but it’s one of the best metroidvanias I've played. The shining star of this game is how many varied and interesting bosses there are here. The game never lets you go too long without a unique boss.
Despite it being a rather large map with many ways of exploration, I found myself not needing a guide for anything. Even 100%ing is pretty doable, although difficult. There’s nooks and crannies everywhere in the world despite not having any invisible walls or nonsense like that. Each zone is so different with unique enemies. All of which challenge the player. This isn't an easy game.
Plus there's a physics-based hookshot which is just awesome. All games need a hookshot.
The game's story is that a virus has taken over a space station and you (a robot) have been tasked to figure out what happened. It’s pretty straightforward.
The art is all pixel graphics done really well. And the soundtrack is fantastic retro-ambient stuff.
Then there's the postgame. It's totally extra, and the game is excellent without it, but it's there. This game can be 100%ed, but then *after that* there's more. A lot more. The game goes to 206% and has a very scary new game+ (which I gave up on pretty quick). I do not recommend attempting the postgame without a guide, because it goes nuts. But it is nothing like that I have ever seen before, requiring simple cipher translation of an alien language, finding specific locations in the station, and finding your way to locations outside the map. The story of the postgame is no longer straightforward. You go down to the surface of the planet, discover secrets of the aliens, and free a ghost from the deadly white maze. It's hard to explain.
Funnily enough, with all the postgame and such there's like five or six different endings you can get, but they're all bad endings. Or they certainly all seem bad.
Anyway, with or without postgame, Environmental Station Alpha stands above so many others as one of the best Metroidvanias I've ever played. It's a shock to me that this game isn't more well known.
