When it comes to Metroidvanias on the Switch, we’re absolutely in the zone where while it would be nice to have some more great ones, we’re no longer starved for them either. Best of all, they range in both styles and levels of difficulty, so if you’re a genre fan there should be a few terrific options to choose from. What I haven’t seen in the genre to this point has been one with a fourth wall-breaking protagonist and a bit of an odd sense of humor, which is what Morkull Ragast's Rage offers. It’s a shame that the general vibe and sense of humor are its greatest strength though.

You’d absolutely be forgiven for saying that the game’s general art style feels pretty heavily inspired by Hollow Knight, though more on a budget and with a sort of Flash game look and feel. There are absolutely games out there that look worse, but it isn’t going to be winning any beauty pageants. Thankfully, at least it has some personality, which perhaps could be enough to keep you engaged for a bit. It turns out that Morkull is a terrible villain, who the developers have tried to imprison in the game with the hope to prevent him from escaping and ruling the world. Throw in some periodic jokes, though they’re generally hit-or-miss at best, and you’ll get the idea on the narrative front.

The problem is that Metroidvanias are absolutely defined by the quality and diversity of the exploration and combat they have to offer, and it’s in this area that Rage struggles at best. Your traversal abilities are at least reasonably good, allowing you to get around to different platforms pretty comfortably (though I wish they hadn’t mapped the shield and dash right next to each other). Your combat abilities, even once you’ve enhanced them, are far more generic and sadly boring though. They’ll get you by, but you’re likely to just continue to use the same attacks over and over again, especially since there seems to be no noticeable bonus to changing them up… so you can just slash a little, dodge, and slash some more in most situations. Related to the weak attacks are the repeated use of the same enemies, almost always in the same rough orientation, so that they just feel like they’re there as speed bumps and not to get you excited about anything.

All that said, this is just a Metroidvania with very little upside to counter quite a lot of blandness. I wouldn’t say that it’s terrible. It’s playable, and you can choose to muscle through to get as much out of it as you can, but the bar on the system is simply far higher than this, making enduring it unnecessary. If you’re really starved for another choice in the genre, you can give it a shot, but there are far better titles out there, even at better prices, to choose from in the eShop.