One of the better metroidvania's out there.
I've played quite a few of them, most of them on my nintendo switch so i feel like i got a solid opinion about this genre.

So lets break it down:
Pros:
• No Rooms, as it is known in other metroidvania which i find stupid at this time and age, the game is broken down in rooms which creates small pauses , black screens to load the next room and repeat.
Afterimage does not have that unless you teleport or use a traveling system, you can run entire continents without ever loading again, true open world experience, keeps the flow.
The only time you may encounter that issue is if you somehow manage to travel really big distances at really extreme speeds, which can be done only at 2 meaningless places.
• Beautiful art style, hand drawn.
• Vast exploration with multiple ways to make different sequence breaks, in some occasions really challenging since you enter places the game shows you with a threat symbol above the enemies that are far stronger than you and can easily kill you with 2 attacks if not careful.
• LVL up, Skill tree and gear system, this is great because it gives you a variety of options of how you can play, although i wont call it to the complexity of something like hollow knight, it does its job to spice things up.
• Difficulty, here some would argue that the game is easy, during my first playthrough i wouldn't have called it easy, but yes i agree to some point that you can simply brute force your way through.
BUT, if you want to challenge yourself there is quite a simple solution to your problem, don't lvl up your stats, use weaker weapons, quite simple and effective way to increase the difficulty which makes it great, everybody can enjoy the game at their own pace and if you struggle you can just lvl up by killing mobs.
• Voice acting, quite rare to see actual voice acting in a metroidvania, few of the ones i have played had it and when they did it was just for some cutscene or for 1 or 2 interactions with important characters, meanwhile afterimage had it everywhere.
• Multiple endings, that a lot of them require extra step to enable them, so it's not a simple thing as to, i select a different answer to "X" enemy i am talking at the end or "do i kill him or not situation".
Different endings with different boss fights and different item requirements to enable the option of, i can unlock this ending.
• Boss Rush mode, i find it a requirement for every metroidvania to have that, afterimage didn't had that at the beginning but now they do have it which can be done also with 2 other characters with different moveset that are your friends in the story.

♥♥♥♥:
• For first timers the main issue will be the exploration part, since there is nothing to guide you as to where to go, you simply have to explore and find out, in some occasions this will end up with you to waste a lot of time cause you cant find that one item you need or simply watching a youtube guide which kinda kills the whole vibe. regardless this may make some put their controller down and not come back to this game and leave a bad taste.
• Story is difficult to follow, if you like to play metroidvania for their story, Afterimage story is kind of all over the place, while it tries to explain things in documents, items you find around the world and during your encounters with other Npc, to piece all the things together requires a lot of attention, and still some things will be unclear, if that was intentional so they leave room for a new game , i don't know.
• Spells cannot be cast when moving or when midair, kills the whole flow of the combat which otherwise is great.


~I've played this game also on my phone and on my nintendo switch, so i am around 90 hours in.

This game absolutely nails the genre! The map is absolutely huge, and exploration is encouraged and rewarded. The world building is pretty sweet, reminding me of the OG Jak and Daxter. The buddy dynamic with Ree and Ifree was also fun. I didn't really follow the plot, but I did enjoy the voice acting. Upgrades and movement was really slick. All the cooking/fetch quests were optional, which was nice. Merchants were a bit lacking but that wasn't really a problem.

Great game with a lot of exploration