You might have wondered what happened last week. I decided to give the section a break because there's no way I can convince anyone to download 30 gigabytes to go fishing in a virtual world, or play the product placement of an animated TV series. However, this free game definitely deserves your attention: It's Islets, a metroidvania platformer in which you'll take on the role of a warrior mouse, with the goal of reuniting five floating islands.
Aside from the two franchises that give the genre its name, the Web seems to agree on one thing: The benchmark against which every metroidvania must be measured is Hollow Knight. The game is a masterpiece, and the expectation surrounding its sequel Silksong is immense, but there are many high-quality metroidvania titles out there, and it makes no sense to get lost in comparisons. Blasphemous has a fabulous atmosphere, Carrion offers the best of reverse horror, and we also find a solid adventure in Islets, this weekend's free game on the Epic Games Store.
Islets: A great hero to unite them all
The story of Islets places us in a fantastic world where five islands float aimlessly in the sky, following the wind currents. However, one day they manage to unite, forming a great island with five ecosystems in perfect balance. Determined to protect this new paradise, the inhabitants of the islands created five electromagnetic cores. Unfortunately, the cores were forgotten over time, and the islands separated again, giving way to wastelands and the new dominion of dangerous beasts.
Every year, hundreds of warriors accept the challenge of rediscovering the islands, reactivating their cores, and uniting the land once again. The mouse Iko is one of those warriors, and he begins his adventure with a series of basic abilities, among which his sword and bow stand out. Iko has a limited number of arrows to shoot, but they recharge by eliminating monsters with a good sword blow, or by using one of the save points shaped like statues. Iko can also roll to overcome certain obstacles, and later he ends up learning the double jump, an essential technique in any metroidvania.
To this we add «upgrades» or more specific powers (for example, optimizing the fire rate with the bow), markers we can acquire to simplify exploration (there's a lot of that, I must add), and portals that help us cover long distances. The only spoiler I'll share about the bosses focuses on the first one, Grave Crawler. It can jump, shoot projectiles, and throw enemies in our direction, but when you reduce its health to 50 percent, it activates a second phase that makes it more aggressive.
The hardware requirements in Islets are relatively low, but I recommend checking the keyboard bindings, since the game favors the use of a gamepad, and the default configuration for keys may not be optimal. Islets will be available on the Epic Games Store until next Thursday, when the free game giveaway continues with a very high-profile double gift.
