The big release today on Xbox Game Pass (prior to Quake!) arrived in the form of interactive thriller Twelve Minutes, but we've also had another couple of intriguing day one launches including the Metroidvania-inspired Recompile.

Reviews have been quietly dropping across the web for it, so here's what the critics think:

TheGamer (4.5/5)

"This is no ordinary game - it is brilliant and ambitious and frustrating in the one and only way that frustration can be a positive term. Recompile is a rare gem in a cave of unremarkable cobblestone, a pearl among cracked shells and coarse sand. If you do one thing after reading this review, do both yourself and I a favour: download Recompile, and once you're done with it, tell your friends to download it, too."

ScreenRant (4/5)

"Overall, Recompile is a mixed bag that struggles to balance each aspect of its design. The world design and exploration may be great but the combat is frustrating at best and infuriating at worst, with its only saving grace being that enemy swarms and boss fights are sparse. Recompile is a stunning experience that is addictive and immersive despite its faults, however. Recompile is an excellent option for fans of Metroidvanias, challenging gameplay, and unique ideas."

IGN (6/10)

"Recompile is a competent metroidvania with a strong story and great writing let down by overly bland gameplay. Its platforming and puzzles are too simplistic, and its infrequent combat can frustrate, but hunting for bits of lore between those sections still managed to stay interesting. It's a short-lived and sometimes forgettable metroidvania, but with a story that still makes it a few hours well spent."

Slant Magazine (3/5)

"Recompile never comes close to having the same catastrophic levels of dysfunction as the Hypervisor. The game runs smoothly and looks great, but it would be more entertaining with just a little more gatekeeping."

"You could say that Recompile might have benefited from running a final pass on itself, to correct its unbalanced difficulty so that it’s not nearly as hard at first nor as disappointingly easy and anticlimactic in the end."

Reviews for Recompile are fairly sparse at the time of writing, but it's currently sitting at the 69 mark on Metacritic (for PC) based on 7 reviews. It's available to download now on Xbox Game Pass for Xbox Series X, Series X and PC — sorry, there's no Xbox One version — so if you can, give it a try and see what you think!

Will you be checking out Recompile on Xbox Game Pass this week? Let us know in the comments below.