A BIT OF THE COSMOS IS GOOD ENOUGH
Classic Metroid, indie style.
Metroidvania this, Castletroid that, but nowadays we don't have games that follow the classic Metroid DNA rather than the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night hybrids which blend Super Metroid with RPG elements. Examples are everywhere; the Touhou Project based Touhou Luna Nights, Inti's Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night are the most mentioned, but it would be a matter of time until someone decides to return to the traditional Metroid of the 80's and we have an indie Metroid clone or "Indietrioid": Cosmos Bit.
The first thing we notice about the game is that the playing style is heavily based on the first Metroid rather than its successors, this is very notorious on the fact that we can't crouch or aim diagonally, making this a Pre-Contra basic, easy to learn platformer control scheme. However, anyone who've felt "like a rat in a maze" will find this game a little easier since there's some linear routes where you don't have to rely on constantly searching for narrow corridors hidden on a wall or something. Instead, you'll be finding blockades which will be cleared out once you've find a key item, pulling levelers or complete a specific task like killing 10 flies in the room you are, this one mirrors the locked gates in Super Metroid where you're pitted with a sub boss or a particular enemy room prior to a boss room (Ex. the pirates before Ridley's room). Like in Metroid, your weapon is limited to a short ranged beam requiring you to get to a certain distance from the enemy. Not too far preventing "sniping" and not too close. Despite the map layout is maze-like you'll be spending a lot of time, not exploring but killing enemies. The reason of this is because the weapon strength and the damage dealed. Anyone who played the Metroid series or a Metroidvania/Castletroid will perfectly know that every enemy has a damage tolerance to your default weapon (ex: some enemies take 2 hits, others 5 or 6, etc.) and they'll take less hits to die as soon as you power up your weapon. Not in here. Before your first weapon upgrade, all the enemies of the surface-jungle cavern will take a total of 10 hits to die. From the green mushrooms to the dragons and flying eyes, making your character look completely weak until you get a weapon Power Up which will require 5 hits to kill your enemies, until you reach the Ice caverns where the enemy will take up to 8 hits to die, returning to that cycle of weakness. There's only one enemy that dies in one hit and that's the green squid-like things from the "lava" caverns. Like Metroid, the game provides you with a projectile called the "Alien Bomb", this acts more like the missile to destroy red blocks, but as a projectile weapon it sucks. I'll might sound like the AVGN saying this but "It's just like the rock in Friday the 13th, it arcs over everybody you try to hit. What good is a weapon that doesn't go straight?" So you have to be next to the wall so the Alien Bomb hits it. A good replacement would be the Sonic Boom which is a beam weapon that won't require to reach the save station for reload. Instead, it recharges automatically. Continuing with the Metroid experience of the game, the game has bosses, but just three of them in the main world, since exploration is the major player in the game, until you get the ID card, the rules will change from exploration to action-platformer where the path will become fully linear like a Megaman game.
Paying for what it should be for free. Bastards.
Looks like there's no "Perfect game" nowadays, or at least not too easy to find. The worst flaw of Cosmos Bit is the fact of paying for saving your game. Buying items is one thing and I can accept that since I've played games where do you have to buy things like U.N. Squadron, the Mass Effect series, NieR: Automata, R-Type Final 2 and CrossCode, but saving the game should be gratuitous, free of charge. If you're thinking "Just do the same as in Super Metroid: Go back to the ship", unfortunately that won't work in Cosmos Bit. "Well, got any ideas?" My suggestion is that you've better start gathering points as soon as the game begins. You can do that on the very first room where the ship lands. There's a total of 12 destructible blocks that drop blue/pink/yellow orbs. Pick them, leave the room, enter again and repeat until you get 60 or more of each color. Then buy any upgrades you want and save the game. At least they gave us that subtle hint for stocking on resources, and once you've got all the upgrades, you could even forget to worry about paying 2 blue orbs for saving your game. For a Metroid clone, your lifebar is more Zelda-based as it is indicated by these triangles that go down on each hit, rather than the Zelda-esque 1 hit-half heart rule rather than Metroid's "▉ ▉ ▉ ENERGY 99" pattern that Nintendo enthusiasts are very familiarized with. On the bright side, the Save Station can refill your life and weapons for free.
I've figured this by pure luck.
At first I've though it was an item that required a high jump or double jump to obtain, but guess what? This is one of those few instances in the game that you'll be required to hit icons with a specific weapon. Unlike the Metroid games where this is indicated by a different gate color (Red = Missile / Green = Super Missile / Yellow = Power Bomb), in Cosmos Bit, you have to obtain the indicated power up, return and finally shoot at the icon to unlock the gate. Speaking of unlocking things, this game has a good bunch of Achievements/Trophies for you to unlock like obtaining all the items, killing all the bosses and racking up a total of 150 defeated enemies, you can keep track of your killing thanks to the "Kill Count" on the right side of the screen.
If Sega made Metroid, this is how would look like.
Graphically it can be described as "¿What if Sega made Metroid on the Game Gear?" since the 8-bit color palette of the game is more in-tone with Sega's handheld console with the brightness of the graphics. While the character and average enemy sprites don't get too much attention to details, the boss enemies and the scenery take the most part, especially the final boss despite the aliens look like Atari 2600 rejects.
Taito and Nintendo are not gonna be happy with these...
Looks like plagiarism is common nowadays in gaming. This game rips off many things. Stella Miranova, more than looking like a Samus clone, she resembles a minimalistic version of Tobi Masuyo from Baraduke/Alien Sector, and some of the enemies are blatant ripoffs of a Piranha Plant and Spikey from Super Mario Bros. with green pipe included. There's a Moai from Gradius and the dragons are shameless carbon copies of Bub from Bubble Bobble. I don't know about how Konami and Taito would react, but knowing how litigious the "Big N" is, Seep should reconsider on redesign the Mario-esque enemies.
While the sound department combines modern "ambient-generic" few instrument electronic themes, it has a very low volume compared with the game's sound effects, at the point that you can't enjoy the music as the game wanted you to experience the soundtrack.
The (Indie) galaxy is at peace.
Cosmos Bit is a short-but-fun Metroid clone that will bring some nostalgia to oldschoolers who want to play something more "vintage" that differs from today's Metroidvanias.
If you're up to some classic Metroid styled gameplay, then this will be an entertaining game.
A few minimal flaws in the gameplay, but enjoyable.
Give it a try and have a nice achievement hunt.