Alwa's Awakening
Use your magic staff and progress through a large interconnected world where you'll solve puzzles, fight enemies and defeat bosses in order to help free the land of Alwa. Explore and uncover the secrets by using your platforming skills in this challenging and charming 8-bit adventure game.
Alwa's Awakening is a metroidvania, indie and adventure game
developed and published by Elden Pixels.
Released on February 02nd 2017 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux
in 8 languages: English, Swedish, German, Spanish - Spain, Portuguese - Brazil, French, Italian and Russian.
It has received 798 reviews of which 640 were positive and 158 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.6 out of 10. š
The game is currently priced at 9.75ā¬ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Alwa's Awakening into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Alwa's Awakening through various videos and screenshots.
Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Windows XP, 7, 8, or 10
- Processor: 2.1 GHz Dual Core
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Intel HD Graphics
- DirectX: Version 9.0
- Storage: 280 MB available space
- Sound Card: Yes
- Additional Notes: Gamepad Recommended
MacOS
- OS: Mac OS X 10.7
- Processor: Core 2 Duo
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Intel HD Graphics or better
- Storage: 280 MB available space
- Sound Card: Yes
- Additional Notes: Gamepad Recommended
Linux
- OS: Ubuntu 16.04
- Processor: Dual Core 2 GHz
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Intel HD Graphics or better
- Storage: 280 MB available space
- Sound Card: Yes
- Additional Notes: Gamepad Recommended
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Alwaās Awakening is fantastic. What a great little game. It feels like a true NES game without the NES limitations. It has some quirks, though. Controls/Gameplay The pace of this game is SLOOOOOOW! It kind of feels like an NES game that the system canāt run any faster. Iām not going to say that I love it, but I donāt hate it either. It took me 11.7 hours to clear 100% of the map and almost 90% of the items. It feels significantly smaller/shorter than Astalon, another NES-like Metroidvania. I finished that in 32+ hours at 100% for comparison. The controls are good. I never felt like I made a mistake because the controls were off. Enemies are mostly slow and very few. If youāre looking for engaging combat, youāre not going to find it here. Being a Metroidvania, the game focuses more on exploration. It also has lots of puzzles, but most of them are easy enough to solve on the spot. Save rooms are well distributed across the game. The last area has several since it is more difficult. There are warp rooms too--theyāre mostly functional. I guess itās better than having no fast travel system. I hadnāt heard about the wall jump and double jump āhacksā until nearly the end of the game and didnāt use them at all. Donāt feel like you need to. Difficulty The game felt well balanced and had no difficulty spikes. With that said, I did die some 120+ times, though. Either I was in a hurry and made mistakes or didnāt really learn the enemy patterns well enough. Iām not super skilled either. Some reviewers are saying that the game gets too difficult towards the end (last area to be more precise). It does get harder, but I wouldnāt say itās terribly difficult. It has a lot of consecutive puzzles and traps that kill you instantly, and you have to take your time getting through them. I did get stuck on one specifically and looked it up, then I felt stupid because the solution was super easy to figure out. The bosses are fairly easy, especially once you figure out the pattern. In fact, I beat the last boss on my third or fourth try. Graphics The graphics look simple, but super nice. The color palette is awesome and really stands out. However, I donāt know if this was done on purpose or if they developed the game planning on releasing it for the NES, but there is not a single moving background in the entire game. All backgrounds are 100% static. Again, I donāt know if they were going for NES authenticity, but I feel like it could have been done a bit better on PC. Not a deal breaker, though. Another thingāI had issues running the game on my 21:9 ultrawide monitor in full screen (5120x2160). The game stretches all the way to the edges and I couldnāt find a way to fix that. I had to turn off full screen mode and play it on a small window, which canāt be resized by the way. I played the native Linux version. Music The music is pretty good overall. While they reused assets in at least half of the songs, they sound good, even catchy sometimes. I enjoyed all of it. It sounds nostalgic to me. Other thoughts Hereās my opinion on the ending (no spoilers, though). It sucks. I get it that this is supposed to be like an NES game, but holy crap, at least pretend like youāre trying. That may have been a hook for the next game, Alwaās LegacyāI donāt know. Donāt expect a payoff at the end after all your hard work. I even looked up the ending on Youtube to see if I had missed something. Turns out itās just that crappy. Thereās not much of a story going on here. Actually, I donāt even remember it, and Iāve been playing this game for a week now. Conclusion Iām really glad I purchased the game. It is a fun, NES-like lite Metroidvania with character and interesting dynamics. I had a lot of fun.
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TLDR: If you like platforming, Metroidvanias, 8-bit graphics, and enjoy hating yourself for dying for the 98th time, pick up Alwa's Awakening. It's a surprisingly solid entry into the Metroidvania genre of games. 9/10. Gameplay: Look, I'm old, and my reflexes just aren't what they used to be, but the game is very tight in gameplay. The jump is the only thing that feels a little floaty, but aside from that, everything is pretty solid. The game doesn't tell you everything, you'll need to explore (*cough*useaguide*cough*) to find everything, but it'll still be fun. Music: It's pretty solid, eventually it gets a bit repetitive, because you've died yet again, and then yet again, and you shouldn't really haven't been in these sets of rooms, (did you just die again), this long, and so at this point, the music is $#%# damnit, starting to annoy you a bit, but it's your own GAH! fault. Graphics: It's an 8 bit game? Sure, if you say so. It's a pretty beautiful game for what it is. I really enjoyed it, except for the hidden things you literally can't see. But I guess that's what those who enjoy screwing around with games like doing. Story: Did you care about those things? Do you need one for this? Start, kill things. Save the land. I mean, there's a story I suppose. The NPCs are minorly amusing sometimes. Not really important. Overall: I really enjoyed this game, though I think I would have enjoyed it less if it didn't have "ASSIST MODE" aka "you suck and need a lot of help MODE." Thank you ASSIST MODE. I was able to enjoy the game and not put it down. Seriously get this game and play it if you enjoy these styles of games. Why not 10/10? The hIt box was sometimes super annoying. It didn't look like I hit sometime, but then I hit one of the instant death spike ball things. I hate you. :) Buy this game.
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The level design was pretty good and despite only a few simple upgrades, it was cool to see what platforming tricks you could accomplish with them. I mean it's definitely more interesting than the generic Metroidvania mobility-based upgrades like double jump. The secrets and hidden rooms in this game are really well done, they don't feel especially cryptic, and you don't feel like you're doing an annoying pixel hunt where you attack the walls a hundred times per room looking for secrets like in other Metroidvanias. I like the idea of the blue orb collectables taking away boss health, since I'm a big proponent of Metroidvania difficulty being a function of how much you explore. The only real cons are that It feels a bit slow at times, and the bosses are way too easy.
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A little history about this game: this has been on my backlog for so long just waiting its turn. It is always the "next" one....and then something comes up, until now. This was a big mistake. Alwa's Awakening is exactly what I grew up on. It can be tough in spots, but not "punch your fist through the monitor" frustrating. It takes a bit of brain power, and perfect jump timing. But when those come together right, it gives you that feeling of accomplishment on the little things you didn't know you could reach. I don't despise dying in this one like in other Metroidvania games. This is what NES was back in the day. If you want that retro feeling, then this game really hits it well. The $10 price tag is a small amount to ask for what you get out of it.
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Pretty short indie NES-styled metroidvania, that forgos a lot of the common metroidvania upgrades and tropes. You won't be getting walljumps or doublejumps, but you'll be learning new spells and using them in imaginative ways to solve well designed puzzles and uncovering clever secrets. Movement is pretty slow but it flows really well, the game has sensible amount of backtracking and exploration and the soundtrack is great as long as you like chiptunes.
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 18 November 2024 12:14 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 19 January 2025 20:36 |
| Steam price | 23 January 2025 20:43 |
| Steam reviews | 22 January 2025 13:59 |
Online players
5
Developer
Elden Pixels
Publisher
Elden Pixels
Release
02 Feb 2017
Platforms