Bot Vice

I've had this game for a decade and never beat it until now. Suddenly felt compelled to play it again. Getting the negative out of the way because there's not much. I don't like the VA. I don't mean to be harsh to a small studio, obviously you're not going to be able to hire some professional or theater student and I'm not even asking for better. It's just I'd like the option to turn it off. It somewhat hurt the presentation of a lot of encounters especially the Lunatic fight. ANYWAY This game was always fantastic and of the 3 DYA titles I played, it's my favorite. It reminds me of the joy I would get from Natsume games as a kid like Wild Guns and Pocky & Rocky. It's great console action. Everything you have at your disposal is so perfectly balanced and the pacing is perfect. 24 levels sounds like a lot, but considering they can all be beaten in under 2 minutes while still being full stage gauntlets, it doesn't take long to beat which is a big positive. The graphics are something I always love about DYA. These saturated, crispy, chunky pixels with simple and clear animations are so satisfying and fun to look at. Everything is so legible and just detailed enough to not sacrifice any function. DYA games are my favorite kind of indie pixel art. It's just constantly a beautiful treat to look at. Ninmark, of course, top of his game as usual with the music. I think this is the most perfect fitting of composer to game they could have gone with. It's this 80's "retrowave", as people called it at the time this game launched, with a hint of Mega Man X. It complements the bite size and high octane action flawlessly and it extremely listenable on it's own. Strange Experiments might be my favorite song on the track. It's all as good as what he'd later do for Gravity Circuit. I hope to get more games that appeal to me with him at the helm of composer. Superb artist. I think only things that could have done wonders for this game and fit nicely is an endless mode and some way to introduce a classic scoring system. Even a basic combo chain thing would have been awesome, but I'm glad there is a ranking on time and damage to begin with. It's something extra to shoot for. There's more to talk about that I love but I'm a decade late as it is. It ends on a cliffhanger so I would absolutely eat up a Bot Vice 2 if that's in the cards. What a great game.