Been playing Solar Ash and it's one of those games that is frustratingly close to being really good. The biggest thing it's lacking is confidence. I hope it's just a sophomore slump. It wanted to do something different from Hyper Light Drifter and so it went easier, which is fine in and of itself, but in doing so it loses sight of the great decisions and feel that make it work in the first place. It gives you one of the best feeling movement systems of any game I've played, and then does not challenge you to use them well. It gives you Shadow of the Colossus boss fights, but it rotates you in the right direction and tells you which button to press to win. When difficulty goes up, or boss phases get later, all it does is make a timer shorter to execute. But given the game usually kills you if you miss a jump on the boss fights anyways, this doesn't actually increase the execution challenge since you were making those jumps with those timings in the first place. (The first boss actually did make execution harder, which felt great, and so far the next two have not done similar with any significance.)
It's a game about flow with kicks you out of flow constantly, and does not reward having good flow in any way. It's a game that will point you in the right direction to make sure the boss fight is as 1 button as possible to look cool over feeling cool. It's a game that feels amazing when you are going fast, and then forces you to press the slow down the game button to use the grappling hook, even though you already have a grappling hook button. It's a game that isn't confident enough in how fun it is to play, that it is CONSTANTLY trying to play itself for you.