This is the longest review I ever wrote. It has no spoilers.

Constance is a gorgeous game and a comforting experience. It gives you full control over the risk management. On player death you can choose to prevent it and continue with temporarily empowered enemies, or simply respawn at save point and retrace your steps. You can prefer to practice your skills and go through the area again by respawning, or prevent your death, persevere and push through the enemy if you're feeling close to your destination. This respect for player agency contributes to the game feeling less stressful while being just as rewarding.

The enemies and the skills in this game are also unique. Each enemy, whether stationary or moving, has a unique attack pattern. For each you develop a personal strategy, and as you unlock new skills you also unlock new ways of dealing with them. Exploring the locations is fun in part due to engagements being immersive and not mindless nor repetitive. This is further reinforced by the mechanics of death prevention, upon being empowered many enemies force you to evade by jumping rather than dashing, although even in normal gameplay you will sometimes use this approach as well.

As you progress through, you are given freedom to choose the order in which you will clear the areas. Each one also has lots of additional content available after acquisition of skills found elsewhere, encouraging more exploration. This includes secrets as well as challenges. Even previously explored spots may have secrets you notice only after you progress through other locations. On two occasions I failed to grasp how to access a small secret area, although upon searching for the answer it all made perfect sense. I wonder about the experiences of other curious people who found these answers by themselves.

Another fun aspect is the use of your skills in traversing the landscape. The game does not hold your hand in explaining how to use your abilities to full extent, and it feels exciting to figure out new ways of traversing the environment. The game introduces more niche ability mechanics by showing you them through natural gameplay occurrences, mostly by cleverly planned parkour segments. The save points are ranging from two to four per location, making the exploration feel not overly risky while still giving an opportunity to get lost in the game's world. Runbacks to bosses are very short, to the point of being non-existent.

All bosses have different phases, and each time you rematch a boss you may notice a change in attack pattern, with a couple exceptions to this rule. It often makes new attempts at the same boss feel refreshing, as boss can behave a little differently each time. Sometimes, you will need to perform a different set of actions to proceed to the next phase, and other times you will see that a seemingly familiar attack now casts different projectiles and changes direction, or that different minions are spawned as you face the boss this time.

The game also features some nice puzzles and a few minigames. The world of the game serves as a means to explore the inner world of the protagonist, and that is reflected throughout the story. The in-game world has hints to its inner workings, it is created with a consistent structure, each location is well defined both in art and gameplay. The world and its characters are also a big mental health metaphor, with the game's focus being on the state of mind of the protagonist.

The game allows the player to choose whether to rush through it or go slowly. Both in combat and in location completion. In my experience, at least one of the base abilities is optional and can be avoided altogether. You can reach 100% completion before the ending, which is the way I did it. It can be a short 8 hour journey, or it can be a 15-20 hours long adventure as it was for me in a single playthrough. This game can be played and enjoyed in the exact way you prefer it, and it quickly earned my adoration and respect. I also happened to find a sweet easter egg along the way.

The game has fantastic art style, it is an absolute eye candy, the contrast between locations stunned me every time I entered a new area. The animation flows perfectly and feels great, at times it is also quite sweet too. The music leaves an impact during the gameplay, and some tracks linger in your mind even after completing the game. Sound design is wonderful and one of the first things I noticed while playing. Having found the footage from early development, it is heartwarming to see how the animation and vision of Constance had evolved.

Constance gave me a lot of comfort, I related to its topics and their depiction as well as I related to the protagonist herself. The main character design is gorgeous and so is that of the world that surrounds her. I enjoyed the process of playing this game, and I also enjoyed its ending. Constance is a concentrated, warm feeling projected straight into one's heart. It is a fleeting feeling, and it is also beautiful. It feels sweet to recall my time playing it.

The fights are as tough as you want them to be, and so are the platforming elements. The world exploration takes as much time as you're willing to invest, and the story is as relatable as your personal experience with its theme. No matter which way you choose to play this game, you will find that it does its best to account for your preference. It is the very way the flow of the game feels that you can adapt to your preference. I played this game on its release build, I encountered no bugs, and as I write this developers have already released a roadmap addressing players' comments on the game map. Even though I had no issues with knowing where I am in the game's world, it is great that devs are listening to feedback.

I love Constance for the game it is, I love Constance for the protagonist she is, and I would recommend this game to anyone as it certainly is capable of being an absolutely great experience. Constance is an amazing effort at creating a unique and satisfying product in many aspects, and the result is a fulfilling game that can enact many different emotions within its player. I'm glad I found it, and I can confidently say that it is worth it. Constance did everything it possibly could to make me enjoy it and then some more, an inspiring game and a 10/10. (Review updated due to spelling!)