Curses and Chaos is 2D arcade brawler with a wave mechanism. In each level you need to beat a pre-determined set of enemies in each wave and a boss. The fighting scheme is very simple, you just kick and punch. There's not much of a strategy, just hit and avoid being hit.
Summary:
+ Graphics, sound and animations are nice
+ It's a fun arcade game, if you like hard games
+ Easy to understand, you rely only on luck and skill
+ Has a decent co-op mode
- Too much jumping may end up being tedious and frustrating
- Gamepad and keyboard default configurations are terrible
- Controls are slightly stiff, it's definitely noticeable
- The extras are pointless (e.g., special moves, store, mixing items, dancing)
There are some special skills and features. You can run and punch harder, punch harder upward, use items and dance. Mastering these special moves will only give you a slight advantage, since punching harder does double the damage. Items give you an edge but you need to be lucky to get what you want. You can also buy, sell and mix items, and can start a level with one spendable item. Honestly I find it pointless, just gives a small advantage. Dancing doesn't really do anything useful, just gives you points. The male and female characters seem to be identical, you won't really notice any significant difference. So basically you can only really rely on your skill and luck, like virtually all other arcade games.
The graphics are fine though a little modern corny in my opinion, but not too much. I think it's kind of obvious what they were going for, but that's up to the player to decide (if you know what I mean). The animations are nice and go with the flow of the entire game, so nothing really pops-up as strange, it's overall seamless. That isn't easy to achieve in a game, so points for that.
There is one particular major flaw in the game, Owly. The idea is that you can store one item for later use, but it's so cumbersome that you might as well not use it all. The only reason you may use Owly, is if want to store an item for later use, like a boss. With a gamepad, it's mapped to the B button, so it's possible that you will call him by mistake, depending on how you expect the buttons to work. You need to think fast so that kind of mistake has a high cost. It's one of those games were modern controllers don't fit very well. A keyboard is a lot easier to use because the keys are lined up. The default keyboard configuration is terrible though, so you should change to the Japanese scheme, arrow keys and ZXCV. Personally I would ditch Owly altogether, but that's just me.
The other major flaw isn't obvious, but it's definitely there; too much jumping. Jumping is not fun, it's very tedious. In this game not only do you have to be constantly jumping to avoid enemies, but you also have to perform perfect double jumps to hit enemies flying almost at the top of the screen. There are way too many enemies flying too high, some high enough that you can't even get there. Not only are flying enemies harder to kill, but it gets a lot worse if you don't kill them on time. If you take more than 60 seconds to finish a wave, Death shows up and to kill you in one hit. Witches are always on flying range, but never get down, and if you wait too much time they will invoke 3 frogs. It's a subtle major problem but it's most likely the main source of frustration of negative reviews.
Other than that there are some small gripes. This is one of those games were you take damage whenever you touch any enemy. Added to that the kicks and punches don't have much range, it's too small. This means you have to get close and personal, but not too close, all of the time, including with flying enemies. There's zero room for mistake. To compensate enemies drop life items, so you do need some luck. Another small gripe is the game is slightly stiff. It's not enough to be a major flaw but it's definitely noticeable. Once again, these problems end up being fixed by exclusively using a keyboard. Controllers, even with decent d-pad, simply are not precise enough.
If you like arcade games this is a game for you. This means retrying the same level over and over again until you beat it. It can be frustrating. If you don't have patience, stay away from this game.
