UPDATE: Changing to recommended. Some of the more annoying bugs have been fixed in the latest patch and it's possible to finish a stage without any major issues.
If you’re willing to look past the painful lack of polish and controls that don’t want to obey, you'll find some innocent side-scrolling fun here. At first, my review was a thumbs up, but the more I played, the more problems the game threw at me.
When you notice the lack of any introductions or disclaimers, and you find yourself immediately in the main menu, where the text is so poorly lighted that you can't see what it says, you can tell this was done on a shoestring budget by a tiny group of people.
The story is largely told through your AI, who you can interact with by triggering specific points throughout the stage. Voiceovers are a great touch. However, while the AI has a computer voice that was probably generated with a tool, the main hero has an accent that can be difficult to understand at times. You can also ignore these conversations, but doing so prevents you from gaining "awareness," which unlocks additional information.
If you have the necessary awareness, the more you talk, the more information you open. Full awareness is only attainable if you activate every conversation and search for three hidden data cells in each level. Finding them is a chore because they’re hidden out of sight. Even when you see it right in front of you, a piece of broken architecture will keep you from getting it. At the end of the day, this is only important if you want to get the most out of the story.
The other piece of lore is "The Main Book of Ganjuberserk," which may be looked at by pausing the game. This appears to provide guidelines for how a warrior should conduct in battle, but it's a complete mess for a variety of reasons.
First, the language uses Shakespearian English with phrases such as "thy" and incorporates slang in which "You" is replaced with a single letter U. Then there's the unreadable font and paragraph breaks that hide parts of the text. And lastly, the last paragraph goes into a rant about lost love. I think. It just does not fit and needs to go away.
The controls are decent for a typical 2D action/platformer. Although you can use the gamepad to play, the buttons do not change and will still display keyboard prompts. That's why using a keyboard seemed more natural and less frustrating. Your soldier has the ability to leap, crouch, punch, and shoot. A mouse is used to aim, which is vital because the game's unique feature allows you to shoot in depth. But it has painful issues where most will give up right away.
The camera moves behind the character when you hit the aim button. In this mode, you can move around, but you can't see where you're going. Another problem is that the game sometimes refuses to switch. Furthermore, obstacles are a huge issue because even a small railing will block your bullets from hitting the target.
Aiming, on the other hand, is better in this mode because it includes a crosshair and does not feel floaty. In the side-scroller mode, however, you can only move the gun around and point in the general direction. Since there’s no crosshair, you never know where the mouse actually is. Most of the times I had to take a couple of shots just to find the mouse pointer. And when you finally manage to fire in the right direction, bullets hit everything except the target.
Your arsenal consists of a machine gun, shotgun, silenced handgun, and a standard pistol, the only one with infinite ammo. Because ammo doesn’t replenish at checkpoints, you can very much go with only the handgun. Your primary enemies, soldiers and turrets, die after a few shots. While half of them will have a shield that must be destroyed, this doesn’t make them more dangerous. Unless the shield can’t be destroyed, which I’m still not sure if it’s a bug or an annoying feature.
However, that doesn't imply you'll be mowing down hundreds of enemies and escape unscathed. Stages are littered with platforms and holes, laser traps and spikes, and a variety of other lethal hazards that can kill you instantly or take out a significant portion of your health.
On the other hand, you quickly realize there is no genuine threat. Respawning after death is instantaneous and without penalty at the nearest checkpoint. Because every enemy remains dead or has the same health at the time of your death, you can just brute-force your way through a difficult part.
While I wish checkpoints were placed more strategically - after the tedious elevator trips or platforming sections - there are a good number of them dispersed across the stage. Energy walls are what prevents you from simply running to the next checkpoint. You can only pass through if you kill all of the enemies.
The stages can be selected in a linear order from the main menu. Graphics are surprisingly good in certain stages, but much of it is squandered due to inconsistent lighting. This usually means that dark locations, such as air ducts, turn the entire game dark. You may not even notice the equally dark enemies right away. The ammo pickups, on the other hand, are so bright that they virtually melt the screen. The most egregious offender is the "scan" feature, which allows you to see red lines or cables. However, this causes the game to go black for a few seconds.
Sadly, the current state of the game needs work. While some issues can be ignored and the game played with some ounces of fun, you just can’t go past the game-breaking bugs. Some examples: punching an enemy can cause it to move forward into the screen, preventing you from shooting it; the main character begins moonwalking near checkpoints and prevents you from turning; the over-the-shoulder view becomes stuck in the side-scrolling section; the "use button" prompt appears when there is no button nearby; the hacking mini game becomes broken if you press the key too quickly, and so on.
