The game had a few strange design choices, but overall I thought it was pretty good, I was just a little confused at first. I assumed it was something similar to Contra, but it's actually more of a rogue-lite (ish) game, well I would not call it a rogue-lite, but you have 1-life for the entire game, and the stages have some randomized elements like different bosses and different preset patterns, plus you can unlock different weapons and passive upgrades that you can pick prior to starting the run. I still think the game has more of an arcade feel to it, just with a little twist to it I guess.
I want to mention that this review is only based on playing the first character, I tried the big dude and I didn't like his gameplay feel, but the ranged character feels more natural to me. I think the controls and the mid-air gameplay here were perfect, I didn't really have any issues with the character momentum, and in general, the game has fair difficulty. It took me about 2 hours of practice on normal difficulty to beat it, so the actual game is about 1 hour or so, which is kind of okay for what the dev was going for, although I think it could have used another location.
Now you might think the game with 1-life would be pretty difficult, however, the telegraphing in this game is extremely generous, so after a couple of attempts you could probably do it, maybe even on the first try if you are super careful. Funny enough you can actually beat some of the bosses in 1 second, if you get the right build it's not that hard. You also get more armor upgrades by finding hidden collectibles, so once you get a few upgrades going it's a lot more tolerable. There are 4 difficulty modes so if the normal is too easy, the hard mode actually speeds up the bullets so it's significantly different. Also, to get the ending to the game you have to meet a certain requirement, essentially you have to collect things while playing well and not getting hit, it's not too hard to do it, but I didn't get it on the first try.
There are several slots for different preset weapons, and for the most part, I thought every gun had some niche usage, all of them are useful in one way or another, although I didn't like tossing the bombs. One thing I really liked about the game is that not only you can get different mini-bosses and stage bosses, if you meet those bosses at a different level, you will have to fight them in the harder location too.
[h1] Pros: [/h1]
(+) Loved the visuals, kind of reminded me of Ubermosh a little with the colors, very dirty psychedelic look.
(+) I had no issues with the gameplay personally, only speaking for the first character, very responsive game, with very telegraphed attacks, and fair difficulty.
(+) You have 2 characters and there are several choices for the main weapon, sub-weapon, and a few other modifiers as well. Most of them had interesting niche usage, I really liked the triple laser on the melee, overpowered as #$#$ though.
(+) Very over-the-top soundtrack, loved it. The only thing I would nitpick it that some of the sound effects could have been better, I feel the sound for the first gun and the boosters could have been more prominent, it's kinda low.
[h1] Feedback: [/h1]
[u] Nitpicks [/u] - sometimes after you kill a boss you can still get hit, but it's hard to avoid it because it's slow-mo and everything goes white. You can kill bosses in about 1 to 3 seconds using rockets + triple laser spam, which I don't mind I guess, but I am not sure if you wanted it to be that easy, maybe the repeated damage from those attacks should be a bit lower. Not a fan of the second character so far, I feel like his primary fire should be just a nice and consistent smack, but that is just me.
I thought it was a poor decision to have a requirement for getting the last stage, that is my personal opinion though. On that note, the only part of the game I found disappointing was the last boss, maybe give it another transformation or something (I played on normal though, maybe he has it on higher difficulty I don't know)
Small Update: dev adjusted the timing on the second character, feels a bit more fun now.
[b] Overall Thoughts: 8/10 [/b]
I thought the game was a good combination of old and new, it's kinda like something you would play on NES but not really, it had some enjoyable weapon choices and just cool vibes in general. It's not like it has a huge amount of content, just a nice arcade(ish) experience with 1-life, plays mostly perfectly, but after I beat it there is not a ton of motivation to play it again. I kinda wish it had a few extra modes, endless perhaps with other upgrades, not a complicated game but I had fun playing it.
[code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]
