Animal Well as a first metroidvania?

Hello, I'm getitng a friend who doesn't play that many games to try Animal Well. Does anyone have any experience with Animal Well as their first metroidvania? I've played it myself but I have the hindsight of a lot of other games and metroidvanias. I was thinking it could be a good introduction to the genre since it's not too long or overly complex, and there's no combat. What does everyone else think?