Kotama and Academy Citadel on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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In the Academy Citadel, strength reigns supreme: only the most powerful survive and thrive. Fight your way through the high-tech Academy in your quest to get the highest of honors for a student, and uncover secrets that can save it in its direst crisis in this 2.5D side-scrolling Metroidvania.
Kotama and Academy Citadel is a metroidvania, female protagonist and exploration game
developed by Atomstring Games
and published by 2P Games.
Released on January 14th 2026 is available on Windows and Linux
in 5 languages: English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Korean.
It has received 1,639 reviews of which 1,292 were positive and 347 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.6 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 19.50€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Kotama and Academy Citadel into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
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System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10+
- Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVDIA GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 480
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 25 GB available space
- Additional Notes: Please ensure NVIDIA graphic card driver above 472.12
Linux
- Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVDIA GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 480
- Storage: 25 GB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
I came for the waifus — I stayed for verything else. Kotama and Academy Citadel is the kind of game that knows exactly what it’s doing. Amber, Flora, Chizuru and Klara are absolute standouts — beautifully designed, expressive, and full of personality. Each one has a presence that makes exploration and progression feel more personal, almost intimate. The game understands the appeal of its characters and embraces it with confidence. The art direction is excellent. Animations are fluid, effects are flashy without being overwhelming, and the overall anime aesthetic is polished and consistent. Combat feels responsive, movement is smooth, and progression is rewarding from start to finish. Weapon balance is interesting overall, but the Liquid Blades clearly stand out . They are fast, flexible, and extremely powerful, allowing aggressive play with minimal punishment. Once mastered, they feel almost broken — in the best possible way. That said, the game does not shy away from challenge. Two bosses in particular are brutal: • Eliane (with the EDI device) is an intense test of execution and awareness. • Juliet , especially in her third phase, is a true endurance fight — a massive damage sponge that continuously accelerates global attack speed, demanding focus and consistency. One very welcome design choice is how endings are handled. The game allows you to return to the last decision point, making it possible to obtain all three endings without unnecessary repetition. This made platinum completion feel fair and respectful of the player’s time. I strongly recommend Kotama and Academy Citadel. It’s a game that confidently blends fanservice with genuinely good design. I sincerely hope a sequel happens — ideally focusing on one of the three standout waifus — because this easily earned a place as my top Metroidvania, tied with Astlibra .
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I played Kotama and Academy Citadel on Challenge mode, as I generally like to test a game’s “hard” setting to see how thoughtfully it’s balanced. Overall, I found the difficulty fair and, more importantly, interesting. The game offers three difficulty modes from the start, with a fourth unlocking after completing Challenge mode. Rather than simply inflating enemy stats, higher difficulties reduce the number of available platforms. It’s a smart mechanical adjustment that meaningfully changes how you approach encounters instead of padding numbers, and I appreciated that restraint. There is one stylistic element worth addressing up front, even if it largely comes down to taste and cultural differences. Some of the character portraits are overly sexualized, which felt uncomfortable given the school setting. While there’s no nudity, several designs rely on exaggerated proportions or suggestive poses that felt out of place. It’s clearly a deliberate art choice and one that will appeal to some players, but it’s not something I personally enjoyed. The game has no voice acting, but the writing is clear and readable, which isn’t always guaranteed in heavily translated titles. That said, boss dialogue that appears immediately before fights scrolls by quickly and is easy to miss. The interaction prompts for NPCs can also be finicky, requiring very specific positioning. Quest objectives are clearly marked on the map, and additional details can be found in the in-game database. As someone who isn’t particularly story-driven, none of this bothered me much. Importantly, the game allows players to skip cutscenes and dialogue entirely, which I value highly. Main objectives are always clearly indicated, while still allowing room to explore off the critical path. Exploration outside the main story is more divisive. Players can find area maps that reveal how rooms connect, which helps make secret-hunting feel tangible without external guides. However, many hidden walls are not shown at all, and this is where my biggest frustration lies. These secret walls hide substantial content, including the third weapon, which I completely missed on my first playthrough despite being told its general location and deliberately exploring that area. This weapon is mandatory to use to experience all the content, including an extra biome and two bosses. While the game technically allows you to finish with a rushed “bad” ending, accessing the full experience requires stumbling upon multiple opaque secrets. I would strongly suggest either a late-game upgrade that reveals secret walls or more visual cues—such as breakable crystals—to better communicate what’s interactable. As it stands, the process felt like hours of aimless scavenger hunting, which sharply soured my experience after an otherwise strong first half. Once most side content is completed, the final biome becomes accessible, and its area map conveniently reveals all remaining unexplored rooms. If this had been available earlier—particularly during the secret-heavy portion of the game—I think the overall experience would have benefited significantly. Re-visiting areas extensively also exposes some limitations in enemy variety, which begins to feel repetitive during completionist runs. Movement is one of the game’s strengths. The double jump is acquired early, and the titular umbrella spear allows the player to float, giving excellent midair control. Additional movement abilities unlock over time, keeping traversal fresh. Some players have reported issues with the dash mechanic, though I personally experienced none. From what I've read, locking the frame rate will help with the dash and parry timings if you do experience issues with them. Platforming is demanding but fair, with optional platform assists available to accommodate a wide range of players. Spike hazards are particularly punishing, instantly resetting the player to the last safe position, which can feel harsh during tight jumps. The optional Collection Hall deserves special mention—it’s one of the most brutal platforming challenges I’ve ever attempted, and I ultimately rage-quit it. Thankfully, it can be skipped using platform assists, so completionists aren’t locked out of 100%. Combat is the core of Kotama and Academy Citadel, and it’s where the game truly shines. Attacking enemies coats them in fluid; once enough accumulates, they glow purple and can be detonated for massive damage while healing the player. Enemies display purple markers indicating how many detonations are needed to stagger them, creating a constant push-and-pull between offense, positioning, and survivability. The healing system is especially clever: players have a fixed life pool (Chronoshell) but can heal using currency, making healing theoretically unlimited but risky to execute mid-combat. Death only occurs if the player is hit after reaching zero life, which allows for tense recoveries without removing stakes. It’s an excellent system that I genuinely hope other games borrow from. There are three weapons in total, each with distinct movesets and mobility options, and parrying is heavily incentivized. Successful parries allow counterattacks and rapidly coat enemies in fluid, reinforcing the combat loop. The weapons feel mechanically distinct, and I enjoyed rotating between them once they were unlocked. Death is also handled generously: upon dying, players leave behind a residue that can be destroyed to heal them on their next attempt, easing frustration during repeated fights. The presentation is strong. Each zone has its own music and visual identity, and the soundtrack is consistently good. Enemy designs are creative and memorable—living vending machines, haunted portraits, and robots somehow coexist in a way that feels coherent within the game’s world. Enemy variety is solid, though it does wear thin during extensive backtracking. Bosses, on the other hand, are a highlight. They’re large, visually striking, and fun to learn. Elaine stands out as a major difficulty spike, particularly compared to the surrounding content, and I suspect some players may struggle to push through. Thorough exploration for upgrades before this fight is strongly recommended. Ultimately, Kotama and Academy Citadel is an impressive achievement. The combat systems, movement, music, and overall design quality rival—and often surpass—those of far larger studios. If not for the tedious scavenger-hunt approach to unlocking the true ending, this would have been an easy recommendation for multiple replays. As it stands, I’m unlikely to fully re-explore the map again, and future playthroughs will probably end at the “bad” ending, where the game peaks for me. Still, if you’re comfortable with heavy exploration—or willing to accept a slightly unfulfilled ending—this is an easy game to recommend.
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This is a Shantae game in spirit. Fairly decent metroidvania propped up and enhanced cute and fun characters. I enjoy.
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This is my initial impressions for those who are on the fence... Game fun. Buy game. Essentially, if you are a fan of the castlevania, metroidvania, etc style of gameplay, this is doing it pretty well. There are definitely some things I have no enjoyed though. First of all, I am playing on the standard difficulty, and it is definitely a bit harder than the standard difficulty for most of these style of games. Not really an issue, but when the difficulty comes from getting locked into your regular attack combo and unable to parry or dash out quick enough.... it feels tedious. The boss/mini-boss battles that you come against allow you to get hit once or twice before you die, and you pretty much have an infinite amount of healing, but with that being said, the balance around being able to heal in time on certain fights seems strange. With this being said, I have died maybe 4 or 5 times in the hour and some change that I have played it, and it doesn't feel too overwhelming so far. Game scores: Combat - 7/10 graphics - 9.5/10 music - 9/10 art style - 9.5/10 story - ?/10 ...... I have no idea what is going on at this point in time.,.... I am vying forsome kind of power at the school and need people to vote for me.... so we are basically running around beating the crap out of people to get their votes.... idk. its weird but it might improve over time. I will update this as I feel it has changed while progressing through the game. Hope it helps!
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I'm enjoying the game so far, the visuals are beautiful and the mechanics seem satisfying. The movement is very fluid and the parry window is great. The downward attack could keep us in the air just like a game I think you know
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Frequently Asked Questions
Kotama and Academy Citadel is currently priced at 19.50€ on Steam.
Kotama and Academy Citadel is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 19.50€ on Steam.
Kotama and Academy Citadel received 1,292 positive votes out of a total of 1,639 achieving a rating of 7.57.
😊
Kotama and Academy Citadel was developed by Atomstring Games and published by 2P Games.
Kotama and Academy Citadel is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Kotama and Academy Citadel is not playable on MacOS.
Kotama and Academy Citadel is playable and fully supported on Linux.
Kotama and Academy Citadel is a single-player game.
Kotama and Academy Citadel does not currently offer any DLC.
Kotama and Academy Citadel does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
Kotama and Academy Citadel does not support Steam Remote Play.
Kotama and Academy Citadel is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Kotama and Academy Citadel.
Data sources
The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.
Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 28 January 2026 22:12 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 28 January 2026 09:22 |
| Steam price | 28 January 2026 21:03 |
| Steam reviews | 28 January 2026 21:52 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Kotama and Academy Citadel, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Kotama and Academy Citadel
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Kotama and Academy Citadel concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Kotama and Academy Citadel compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
168
Developer
Atomstring Games
Publisher
2P Games
Release
14 Jan 2026
Platforms