Islets

My first session with Islets ran longer than planned because the movement just felt right from the start. Solo developer Kyle Thompson built a metroidvania around a sword-and-bow mouse named Iko, and the whole thing operates on a principle of satisfying simplicity: sword thrusts, a dodge roll that doubles as your main tool for avoiding damage, arrow fire that recharges off melee hits, and a progressive unlock ladder that adds double-jump, wall-climb, and a ground-slam over the course of the campaign. Nothing here reinvents the genre, but every piece of the kit is tuned well enough that chaining movement through a room feels genuinely good rather than functional. The game's structural hook is what makes it stand out. Five floating islands start as separate, self-contained maps. As you locate each island's magnetic core and activate it, that island physically docks onto the growing landmass, opening new routes at the junction points. Each island works as its own small metroidvania chunk before becoming part of the larger whole, which means the world expands in a way that feels earned rather than arbitrary. It also quietly solves a common pacing problem: instead of dumping you into one massive interconnected map and leaving you to get lost, Islets feeds you one region at a time before stitching them together. Boss fights are the other area where the game genuinely impresses. Most bosses sit across two to three encounters per island, and their bullet-pattern attacks reward learning over brute-forcing. A subset of fights take place in Iko's airship and tip fully into danmaku territory, complete with a visible hitbox circle, which is a fun gear-shift. Some players have noted that boss health pools can feel padded relative to Iko's damage output, meaning you may spend more time demonstrating a learned pattern than you feel you need to. The upgrade token system, which presents three randomized permanent boosts after completing challenges, works well early on but can start to repeat itself once you have a decent chunk of the map cleared. The presentation earns its reputation. Hand-painted environments across biomes ranging from sun-lit meadows to clockwork-industrial interiors look genuinely lovely, and the soundtrack shifts tone to match the story's progression without ever becoming intrusive. Fast-travel portals are sparse and save points can feel too far apart after a tough boss, which is the roughest friction point in an otherwise smooth experience. The campaign runs roughly eight to ten hours for a straight playthrough, with collectibles and hidden challenges extending that for completionists. At a sub-five-dollar price point, the value math is straightforward. If you bounced off Hollow Knight because the difficulty felt punishing, Islets sits in a noticeably more accessible register while still having bosses with actual teeth. If you have already cleared everything in that tier of the genre and need something to push your skill ceiling, this probably will not do it. But for anyone who just wants a clean, confident metroidvania with a warm tone and movement that feels good to inhabit for a weekend, Islets delivers exactly that.

Alex · Scout Team

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