A stylish anime metroidvania with bold ideas, uneven execution, and a combat system worth your time.
Metroidvania games are very popular, so it’s getting harder and harder to stand out. Every year, dozens of new contenders come out, and they all build on the same basic ideas of exploration, backtracking, ability-gated progression, and making a world with a lot of atmosphere. Atomstring Games, an independent developer that not many people know about, joined this crowded field with Kotama and Academy Citadel, a sci-fi anime Metroidvania game put out by 2P Games.
Instead of starting from scratch, the team decided to make their project stand out by adding some unique features and mechanics. These included a story structure based on popularity, a healing system based on currency, and a light time-manipulation feature that was directly linked to discovery.
Kotama and the Academy Citadel catch the eye right away at first look. It stands out in a sea of pixel-art caverns and gothic ruins thanks to its anime-inspired character art, futuristic school setting, and bold design choices. The game proudly shows its influences by using anime tropes, risk-reward systems like those in Souls, and standard Metroidvania design ideas. The title that comes out is both old and new, and it works sometimes and doesn’t, but it’s always interesting enough to talk about.
This means that the question is not whether Kotama and Academy Citadel is special, but whether its ideas fit together well and make sense.
In Kotama and Academy Citadel, you play as Kotama, a mysterious exchange student who decides to attend the Carmel Academy Citadel, an elite school from the future that is known as the cutting edge of technology. There is a harsh social hierarchy behind its smooth exterior. The Carmel Star Election, a school-wide race, decides who is the most important and has the most status. One student gets the Carmel Star every hundred years, and the next election is coming up soon.
Kotama starts out at a huge disadvantage as she is new. To have a chance, she needs to look around the school, face off against other students, complete quests, and find out secret facts in order to get more votes and become more popular. This structure cleverly connects the story’s goal to exploration, giving each room, NPC, and side job the chance to add to the story. The way the story and game progress are put together seems like a good idea on paper.
The story has trouble staying on track and staying consistent. There is a lot of lore in the game, like journal entries, NPC conversation, and background history, but it’s not often presented in a way that makes sense or feels emotionally engaging. A lot of the plot happens on the edges, which makes it easy to lose interest if you’re not looking for it. Translation problems make things even less clear; some conversations and lessons look unfinished or unclear, which can break the immersion sometimes.
In any case, the character descriptions and portraits do a lot of the work. The designs are beautiful, clearly anime-inspired, and often shockingly detailed. The writing may not stick with you, but the presentation helps the cast feel like they belong and reinforces the game’s identity as a love project with a clear style vision.
A bold idea let down by a story that isn’t focused, but a striking portrayal of the characters lifts it.
Kotama and Academy Citadel is a pure Metroidvania game at its core. You explore a big map that is all connected to each other. You can get new movement skills like double jump, dash, grapple, and ground pound, and you can go back to places you couldn’t get to before to find secrets.
The school is split up into different biomes, such as libraries, labs, dorms, and industrial corridors. Each biome is full of enemies, collectibles, and optional challenges. A good map system makes exploration more fun. When players find important things like NPCs, fast travel spots, and key items, they are instantly marked. You can also use manual markers to plan their next routes.
This function is very important for quality of life because the game has a lot of collectibles, like Chronopetals, Life Jade Shards, weapons, Memocards, banned films, and more. Each type of object helps the character grow, makes it easier to stay alive, or wraps up the story, which encourages players to explore the game fully.
The Temporal Coil system is one of the more odd parts of the game. Moving from room to room uses up coils and moves the game forward in time, which changes the access of NPCs, the progress of quests, and the state of the environment.
When you save at rewind stations, time starts over, which lets them try again and improve their guidance. The idea behind the method is interesting, but it’s not well explained, so many players have to learn how it works by making mistakes. In the end, it adds a light strategy layer to movement, but it never quite lives up to its full promise.
For quick travel, there is a central train hub that gets busier over time. There are shops, NPCs, and upgrade systems in this hub, which also acts as a story anchor and a mechanical checkpoint. Overall, the gameplay loop is pretty standard, but it’s well-done enough to keep you interested, even if it doesn’t completely change the genre.
Kotama and Academy Citadel really shines in battle. The umbrella spear, the whip hammer, and the twin blades are Kotama’s main tools. Each has its own range, speed, and usefulness, so players can adapt the way they fight to their own preferences. You can get these weapons upgraded at merchants with the materials you’ve gathered, which will give them more damage and special abilities.
The detonation method is the most interesting mechanic. As you hit enemies and block their attacks, a purple substance builds up on them. When the pile is fully covered, a strong attack detonates it, dealing a lot of damage and giving Kotama health back. This makes an enjoyable risk-reward loop that makes players want to play aggressively and skillfully instead of passively mashing buttons.
Luminite, the game’s main resource, is used for healing. Instead of health items that can be used up quickly, players have to stand still and pay cash to heal themselves. This choice makes every fight more exciting because healing makes you weak and uses up resources that could be used to improve your character. It’s a smart method that keeps money useful throughout the whole game and makes the deliberate pace of combat stronger.
The best parts are the boss fights. Each big rival has its own attack patterns, clear telegraphs, and a level of difficulty that encourages skill and observation over brute force. Some standard enemies, like flying or spam-heavy ones, can be annoying, but the fighting system as a whole is still fun and works well.
A way of fighting that is based on risk, rhythm, and rewarding aggression.
The way fighting works is good, but there are some problems with it. Many players choose not to use secondary skills because they use up Luminite too quickly, making basic attacks and detonation triggers more useful. The balance between enemies can also be off, with some enemies causing too much damage or making awkward difficulty spikes.
Platforming is more controversial, even though it’s a big idea. Some parts have really creative tasks that need accuracy and smart use of skills. Others have movements that are too stiff, dash activation that isn’t always consistent, and control choices that make the game less precise, like default analog movement. The famous “slime slingshot” move, which is needed in some optional areas but never fully explained, causes a lot of confusion.
Along with skills and upgrades, your progress is also based on how many votes you get, which goes up as you complete tasks and explore the world. This percentage limits certain plot points and ends, which fits with the story’s main idea of popularity. It has a strong theme, but it can feel cloudy at times, especially when paired with the temporal system.
Kotama and Academy Citadel looks like a bunch of different things. Character images are very detailed, show a lot of emotion, and are definitely eye-catching. The anime style is fully accepted, and the designs are bold and go beyond what’s usually seen in non-gacha games.
Environmental images, on the other hand, are not nearly as creative. Many parts feel boxy, repetitive, and artistically dull, like the backgrounds in early PS3 games. Some interactions, like moving things, don’t have any animation at all, and animations can be choppy. Frame rate drops that happen sometimes in visually busy places make the experience even worse, and they sometimes need to be fixed by restarting the game.
Even though the game has these problems, the art direction still stands out because of how well the characters are drawn and how well the overall theme is tied together.
Striking character art stuck in boring settings.
One of the game’s quiet strengths is its sound design. The music in the game includes moody electronic songs and piano-driven melodies that go well with fighting and exploring. A lot of the pieces feel much bigger than the scenes they go with, which gives the school an emotional weight that the story doesn’t always have.
All of the sound effects are good, from the hits of weapons to the background noise from machines. Voice acting isn’t present, which is a missed chance given how much the focus is on the characters, but the audio presentation still adds to the experience rather than taking away from it.
There are a lot of different things in Kotama and Academy Citadel. It has a great combat system, a smart way to heal, and a strong visual personality through the way the characters are designed. Plus, it has rough platforming, a story that isn’t focused, technical problems, and systems that aren’t fully developed and never quite reach their full promise.
It doesn’t change the Metroidvania theme, but it also doesn’t make it look bad either. Instead, it gives players a solid, sometimes frustrating, but mostly fun experience that will connect best with genre experts who are willing to overlook rough spots in favor of mechanical depth.
