Wings of Endless finds itself in a saturated genre where it’s becoming harder for games to distinguish themselves among the crowd. There are a lot of metroidvanias out there, and every week, more keep coming out. It’s gotten to the point that having good graphics and controls barely mean anything anymore, and the x-factor comes down to hard-to-pin abstractions.
Some metroidvanias stand out for their impeccable pacing and atmosphere. Others are memorable for surrealist visual design and music. Other times, having a bizarre twist or strong theming is enough to make the experience compelling.
What can Wings of Endless do to stand out when there’s an ocean of metroidvanias to choose from? Does it do anything special? Find out in our Wings of Endless review!
Wings of Endless
Developer: Isoca Games
Publisher: JanduSoft
Platforms: Windows PC
Release Date: April 30, 2025
Price: $12.99
No, Wings of Endless doesn’t do anything special. This is as generic of a metroidvania as it gets. Its closest comparison would be like The Dynastic Hero, without the cool soundtrack or pixel art cutscenes. The main draw is the three playable characters with distinct gameplay features, but whenever it’s done like this, it always feels like one character broken up into three.
You have your prototypical shonen protag guy with a can-do attitude. He’s the main attacker and can take a beating like a champ. His main weapon is a hammer, and his magical owl buddy enhances his mobility. He can double jump and air-dash, making him an efficient character for most of the game.
The second character is a knife-wielding female thief. She can turn invisible, and her attacks are fast and have a long reach. She can’t take too many hits, even with powerful armor, due to her poor HP pool. She’s the closest thing to a normal human in a story full of characters armed with magical crap. The last playable character is a powerful mage who is most mobile in the air and hurls fireballs.
The effort to include variety is appreciated, but the result leaves a bad taste due to the sloppy mechanics. While the character animations are impressively fluid and feel good when moving them around, only Hariku, the protagonist, has air-dashing and double jumping. Dodge rolling feels off due to inconsistent i-frames, leading to cheap shots and unfair deaths.
The cast is also unbalanced, with only Hariku being the only worthwhile damage dealer, leaving the two ranged characters hopelessly useless during most encounters. Enemies tend to have bloated HP pools, resulting in extensive shooting matches with spongy enemies.
Wings of Endless‘ most notable gameplay quirk is the airtime characters have while attacking mid-jump. Characters effectively pause while in the air when attacking and stay there while performing a combo. It takes a little getting used to and is helpful when fighting tons of mobs that tend to crowd the ground, and assists during platforming.
All three characters need to have their equipment maintained, so expect to grind for cash to keep everyone up to date. Having to individually gear up the cast is one thing, but leveling up their stats requires a finite collectible which are found in hidden areas.
It feels bad to specialize entirely on one character for all the stat boosts and forcing the other two losers to be situational mules for the off chance they’re needed. It’s the only way to play efficiently since you’re bound to end up with a weak party if the stats are evenly distributed across all three. The upgrade system makes no sense because the magic stat is useless for some characters.
Worse yet, the gameplay gets frequently interrupted to change characters for the brief moment when they’re needed. Wings of Endless already has a choppy flow due to the spongy enemies and excessive obstacles placed everywhere. Having to stop to switch just sucks and makes the experience annoying.
Hariku’s attacks are the only truly effective way to deal with enemies. The other two are redundant, and while he outclasses them in most regards, the animation and sprite art for his attacks have a much smaller hitbox than they appear. Playing as anyone else is too much of a risk since everyone else is too weak and utterly melts under the slightest bit of pressure.
Wings of Endless is unremarkable in most cases. The middling gameplay and forgettable designs won’t suck players into its setting. The background pixel art is delightfully chunky and has decent color choices, but the bland and uninspired soundtrack won’t establish a palpable or memorable atmosphere.
If Wings of Endless is the first metroidvania action RPG you ever play, and you’re under eight years old, then it might impress you. For everyone else, there are so many better options out there. Even legitimately worse games are more interesting than Wings of Endless purely because they’re more likely to leave a lasting impression.
Wings of Endless‘ biggest failing is how utterly dull, amateurish, and milquetoast it can be. The entire package feels like a formless gray sludge that lacks any bite or confidence.
Wings of Endless was reviewed on Nintendo Switch using a code provided by JanduSoft. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Wings of Endless is now available for PC (via Steam), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.
