Metaloid : Origin

I have a soft spot for the two-person studio that quietly ships something sincere, and Metaloid: Origin fits that profile precisely. RetroRevolution - a Thai-Italian duo backed by a composer named Kamil Sudrajat - built this game with an open heart pointed squarely at the Mega Man X era, and the result is a fast, colorful, side-scrolling action platformer that mostly delivers on that ambition across nine themed stages. The setup gives you three Predator androids to choose from before a single bullet is fired. Erika floods screens with sustained bullet fire, Zeta hits hard and fast with atomic thunder, and Neva uses a jetpack to open up aerial routes through levels. All three share the same run-shoot-dash skeleton, but their weapon sets genuinely change how encounters feel. Layered on top is a Soulrium gem economy: gems drop from enemies and hide in level corners, and you spend them mid-run through the pause menu to unlock alternate firing modes - three-way shots, bouncing projectiles, concentrated short-range blasts - or to restore health in a pinch. It is a small but smart wrinkle that rewards players who explore rather than sprint. Vehicle sections appear too, with motorbike runs, minecart passages, and a mech suit sequence that echoes Mega Man X's Ride Armor almost beat for beat. Where the game impresses most is feel. The controls are tight and forgiving in the right places - you rarely blame the input when you die, which is exactly what this genre demands. Stage design mixes firefight gauntlets with light platforming detours, and the difficulty curve is gentler than Capcom's blue bomber series, making it accessible to players who bounced off harder Mega Man titles while still offering a proper boss challenge. The pixel art is vibrant, full of parallax layers and particle bursts, and each of the nine zones has its own biome identity - waterfall caves, desert scooter chases, volcanic mines, snow fields. Sudrajat's chiptune-adjacent soundtrack sits comfortably in the background, high-energy and gear-appropriate, though a couple of critics found it forgettable on repeat listens. Fair enough. It is functional atmosphere rather than a standout score. The honest criticism worth weighing: the game wears its references so openly that it never quite escapes their shadow. Some environmental hazards - spikes, electrified floors - blend into busy backgrounds in ways that cause cheap deaths, a readability issue that surfaces in more than one review. The linear level unlock structure also strips out one of Mega Man's core pleasures, the puzzle of choosing your stage order strategically. And Mac users should note the Steam version is not compatible with macOS 10.15 Catalina or above. These are real friction points, not dealbreakers, but worth knowing. What stays with me is the craft visible in the small things: the way alternate weapons open new angles on shielded enemies, the Soulrium system keeping even routine corridor runs economically meaningful, the three-run replayability built in from the start. This is a short game that knows its length. For a tiny independent team, that self-awareness is its own kind of achievement.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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