So this game is about attempting to achieve enlightenment, but at the end (Assuming you can put up with almost 100 stages of the exact same, repetitive, tedious gameplay), you are instead given reincarnation. I do not care what kind of message you are trying to send here; for 95 stages of that, I should be given something a lot more rewarding. The ending is an infuriating disappointment worth dropping an entire 2.5 stars over. With the way I review, that is extremely severe. It takes quite a few negative points for me to drop an entire half-star over.
There are 95 stages.
4 areas with an incrementing number of levels until area 5, which drops it back to 5 levels (each only 1 stage long). The bosses (final level) of each area only have one stage.
5^2 * 4 + (0+1+2+3) + 5 - (4*4) =
25 * 4 + 6 + 5 - 16 =
100 + 11 - 16 =
95
95 stages of tedious, repetitive gameplay.
This, combined with the repetitive music, the infuriating artificial difficulty introduced by the boss of area 3, having to fight that boss TWICE, and my overall experience, drops another half-star from the game, making the final score a 2/5, or 4/10