[spoiler]This is my first proper review, I'd say, so I just picked this game to kinda practice the Steam review Formatting, if you know what I mean, so take this review as like a kid's essay on how they hate school or something [/spoiler]
Alright, let's dissect this one by one.
[b][i]The game features:[/i][/b]
[list]
[*][b] Pixel art graphics [/b]
[/list] Yup, checks out so far
[list]
[*][b] 21 levels [/b]
[/list] Honestly couldn't keep tracking of how many levels were there because all them just looked the same but with a different colour palette and a few different blocks. Not that the amount of levels matters in the first place since you can't choose which ones to play.
[list]
[*][b] 14 Bosses [/b]
[/list]While technically not a lie, it's not entirely true either, you got your 7 normal bosses and then final mega-boss with 7 [b]PHASES[/b], but that doesn't make it into each individual boss, Mr. Developer, like, c'mon. Also, some of the bosses were so strange, I mean, the first boss you encounter, [spoiler]you literally do NOTHING, as in, you just don't shoot it? What kind of boss is that? Why would you finally give a player a gun and a "challenge", and then proceed to add a boss where you [i]don't[/i] shoot it to win, you only set the expectations low. [/spoiler]
[list]
[*][b] A few weapons [/b]
[/list]Okay, the weapons are actually quite cool and they all come with their pros and cons. Use a bazooka that deals a lot of damage, but you give up your movement, quite a nice idea and an alright execution. HOWEVER, and I'm so pissed about this, but you're NEVER told how you can access the weapons via Numbers (1, 2, 3 etc), not even a random scribble or text. So I literally went through hell of mundanely shooting small pellets with a default weapon, when I always had access to a freaking machine gun that does about 4 times more DPS.
[list]
[*][b] A lot of NPCs [/b]
[/list]There are, indeed, a lot of NPCs, but it's not like you're gonna care about any of them, not even a single one. They are hardly different from each other, which would've been fine if only they at least had names. So I was just reading random texts of dialogue, not knowing who everyone was, hell, I didn't even know who [i] [b] I [/b] [/i] was!!! The story was barely concise and you really had to piece everything by yourself without any hints at what exactly is going... I mean, you'd have to read the short bio of the game on Steam to even start understanding that it's about War World 1, why couldn't have this been explained in-game? Let alone that, you don't even know who are you playing as, is it supposed to be self-inserting?
[list]
[*][b] Unique rope mechanics [/b]
[/list]Unique they definitely are. Good? No, not really, but definitely unique. I don't even understand the purpose of the rope mechanic in the first place? Like, you don't get to secrets, even though there aren't any, you don't get to use it during bosses, not that it would be helpful. Then is it really important during the mundane story sequences? The parkour itself was abysmal enough, the rope just made it even worse.
[list]
[*][b] Meaningful music [/b]
[/list]Tell me in what ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ way is it meaningful. All I heard is literally two soundtracks during the game, one of which just felt like the sped version of the other. At some point it just became white noise, it is so empty and ear-piercing - YOU CAN'T EVEN TURN IT OFF BECAUSE THERE ARE NO SETTINGS! Unless I'm literally blind and the settings were only accessible with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Number pad or something.
In addition, while the movement and jumping on and off ledges was a bit wonky, I could forgive it, but my god why would you add such atrocious recoil on the guns in boss sections where you have to actively move around. It would've been far better with no recoil or if the recoil actually served any purpose, like, using it to slightly propel yourself in the air, but you just get stuck in midair.
So, uh, yeah, kind of a ♥♥♥♥ game, I honestly don't know what i expected from 79 cents that I wasted. Not just the money, but also the time. Though, a bit of a rant doesn't hurt every once in a while, right?
