Probably I will never finish this game, because right at the start of the second level a huge frame rate issue prevents me even from dodging the enemy attacks, thus making the game totally unplayable. And this is a pity, because this game is pure gold. It is really awesome, one of the most fun shooters I have ever played. But let's see the details. Cemetery Warrior V is essentially a wave-based arena shooter. So what? What makes it so special? Well, it features a lot of interesting mechanics which make it much more dynamic and enjoyable than the vast majority of indie arena shooters we can find nowadays. In particular, in this game we can find:
- constantly changing arenas: as you beat an enemy wave, you are forced to move to the next arena, which may be entirely different from the previous, and thus may require an entirely different strategy; each time you approach a new arena, you have to thoroughly study the environment, and thus decide wisely which weapon to use and which movement strategy to adopt; this is the feature of the game that I liked the most, because it introduces an incredible variety of gameplay situations, and stimulates the fantasy and the adaptability of the player
- an interesting level-up system: as you keep slaying your enemies, you will be rewarded with points you can spend to acquire new passive perks or even new active skills, which can dramatically increase your chance of survival; active skills can be seen as "spells" you can use to crush your enemies in one hit, to stun them for a second, or even to dash in any direction, thus dodging incoming attacks or escaping from a hopeless situation; in particular, the dodge skill is extremely useful and fun to use, it makes the fights extremely dynamic and full of adrenaline, but of course requires feline reflexes and a good memory, because you have to remember the exact timing for efficiently dodge each different attack; pure ecstasy!
- a good variety of weapons: so far I only unlocked three weapons (and I probably won't see the rest, unfortunately), but I have already seen that they are very different from each other, and each one of them is particularly useful in certain situations; so you won't end up using only one OP weapon, you will be forced to switch between them to adapt to each situation and to each enemy; also, the weapon aesthetics are VERY cool
- a good variety of enemies: the enemies I have seen so far are really cool and badass, each one of them has its own abilities, and requires a particular strategy to be defeated; I have seen only one boss, but... I fell in love with it! The first boss is very cool aesthetically, and above all is well balanced, which is not trivial at all
- a badass and adrenalinic music
- an old school hint system, which means... almost no hints at all! The game tells you almost nothing, you have to figure out its mechanics all by yourself, and it is not particularly easy, because there are a lot of different collectibles, each with its own use, and at the beginning it will be very hard to understand how to manage them
- responsive controls, high movement speed and satisfactory feedback from the weapons.
Of course, like every other good title, this game also has some minor flaws:
- when you are hit there is not enough visual or audio feedback
- some melee enemies can hit you wi-fi (moderately)
- there are no health or armor pickups like in traditional shooters
- a brief introduction or initial cutscene would have been beneficial.
So, overall, I STRONGLY recommend this game to all lovers of fast-paced badass shooters which require a lot of skill and experience and good reflexes. I'd like to see more games like this, but unfortunately current trends point elsewhere.
If you liked this review, can I ask you a courtesy? Could you tell me in the comments if you happen to experience the same frame rate issues at the start of the second level, right after defeating the first boss? I'm trying to understand if this is a problem of my pc only, or if the devs should be alerted and asked to fix this horrible issue. Thanks in advance!
Cheers guys!
Edit: I finally managed to continue with level 2, it turned out that reloading the game later helps fixing the frame rate problem. This is good because now I can try to finish the game, but also bad because... I found other flaws, major this time:
- the melee enemies hitting you wi-fi are becoming seriously annoying
- some enemies can damage you on contact, which is ALWAYS a bad and lazy design choice in my opinion
- some arenas are really badly designed; I'll give you an example, that is, the arena in which I am currently stuck (and for good reasons!): it is a relatively small and narrow arena, BUT, it is completely full of enemies, there are so many monsters that they fill every single square centimeter of floor (literally), you cannot even move without being hit, even if you dash; I don't know if that room is truly beatable, I'll keep trying, but I'm not very optimistic
In general, the difficulty spike from level 1 to level 2 is too steep in my opinion, it should be balanced a bit. However, I'm happy that I solved my frame rate problem, I'll certainly keep playing this game every now and then.
