Cookie Cutter: Overkill Edition

Ratings: Art/Graphics: 10/10 Combat: 7/10 Music: 7/10 Story: 5/10 Platforming: 4/10 Technical Stability: 3/10 Level/Game Design: 5/10 Overall: 6/10 There’s a reason only ~16% of Steam players have beaten the final boss, and it’s not the difficulty. Cookie Cutter is a wild, blood-soaked Metroidvania with serious attitude. Cherry’s chainsaw-swinging, execution-heavy combat is satisfying, the hand-drawn art style is vibrant and chaotic, and the unapologetically punk presentation gives the game a strong identity. At its best, the core beat-em-up loop delivers when you are carving through enemies. But the game suffers from an identity crisis. It shifts from enjoyable brawler combat into poorly implemented platforming sections filled with wall jumps, slides, and spike traps. The controls that feel responsive in fights become floaty and imprecise in these moments. It feels like two different games stitched together, with the platforming half receiving far less polish. The biggest issue is with the final boss: prior to even starting the fight, you must decide on your loadout, and you can’t edit it. You are locked in, and the game puts you in a position where you can only fight the final boss and cannot go back to adjust your build. This is the only time in the game this happens. And having not seen the boss, and being someone who dislikes spoilers, I had no idea what to expect. I just went with the build I had, not knowing I’d be locked in. Perhaps this was hinted at in dialogue, but by that point, the story was so dull that I just clicked through and may have missed a warning saying I was locked in. But even if I had read that, the real problem is that I had no idea what the boss did, so I couldn’t know what kind of build I needed. The truth is, the final boss would have been super easy if I could have swapped out a handful of things. Instead, it’s an artificial difficulty. I just don’t understand their thought process. For a game that lets you switch builds for every other boss, for some reason you’re locked in here. It is a stupid, stupid design decision. I would love to hear the devs defend it. After 34 hours, I quit on the final boss, Salem. Is the boss too hard? No. Is the boss broken and buggy? Yes. On two separate attempts I had Salem down to one hit before I could finish him with a brutalize, and he warped to the other side of the screen. The first time I assumed it was a one-off bug and tried again. The exact same thing happened a second time. That is when I started writing this review. This game has been out for 2.5 years and still having game breaking bugs is inexcusable. To see the level of care put into the artwork paired with a buggy mess is tragic. I cannot in good faith recommend it at full price. I hesitate to recommend it even at 50% off. At 75% or more, it is probably worth it for the graphics alone.

Metroidvania is probably one of my favorite game genres and Cookie Cutter stands out from the pack with its punk aesthetic and cartoon hyperviolence. The combat system is pretty flexible, giving you a decent variety of weapons and abilities to mix and match. I personally struggled with the unforgiving parry system, but it rarely felt like a necessity. (Even the final boss is susceptible to cheese strats.) Traversal feels good too and there are a few truly devious platforming challenges. If only the environments didn't suffer so much from sprawling repetition. There is also a noticeable lack of polish, like bugged progression indicators and most notably a door that was locked on the wrong side. (If this happens to you, and you'll know it when you see it, you can get through by dodge rolling.) Despite my various gripes, if I managed to 100% this game, then anybody can. That said, there are several locked off zones and the story ends with on a cliffhanger, all to tease upcoming DLC expansion, which has yet to manifest after 3 years. It makes this game feel unfinished. If you're a connoisseur of Metroidvanias looking for something weird and charming, Cookie Cutter might be up your alley, but manage your expectations.

O estilo de arte é lindo, não me envolveu tanto mas reconheço que seja um bom jogo. Se você tiver azar pode se irritar com o tanto de bugs, eu tive sorte e tive poucos bugs incomodáveis, então consegui me divertir.

Bad

Игра хорошо сделана в плане графики, анимации и управления. Стилистика и сюжет на любителя. Я не любитель того, что присутствует в этой игре, но это то, с чем я могу смириться. Но с чем я не могу смириться, это периодически появляющиеся баги, которые блокируют мне прохождение. То запертую комнату, которую я прошел с 3-4 раза, мне не разблокируют после уничтожения всех мобов. То уступ, на который я должен запрыгнуть, находится выше того места, где он должен находиться (узнал это из роликов на youtube),и поэтому я навечно застрял в яме в кристальных шахтах. А ведь прошел уже половину игры. ------------------------------------------------ The game is well made in terms of graphics, animations and controls. The style and plot are not for everyone. I'm not a fan of what's in this game, but it's something I can live with. But what I can’t come to terms with is the periodic bugs that block my progress. That locked room, which I passed 3-4 times, will not be unlocked for me after destroying all the mobs. The ledge I should jump onto is higher than where it should be (learned this from videos on youtube), and therefore I am forever stuck in a hole in the crystal mines. But I'm already halfway through the game.

There is a few things to enjoy about this game, but not enough to make it good enough for me to keep invested. Graphically, the animation is great and the game has a unique style that makes it really interesting. But this is where good things end. There may have been more to it, but I did not want to spend more time with this game. I have three main issues with this game, and those things arose very early in my playthrough. First, Discordence of its many elements. From the get-go, the whole style is about a raging, over the top punk-rock girl (woman?). But eveything about the character interactions and looks goes against that exact idea. Her nonchalent walk with here spagheti limbs wiggle around, and uninterested attitude in dialogue reminds of teens being asked to do chores. She is supossed to be strong, but her build, tree-trunks legs does not match the intent. The enemies also do not have any coherence. What does Robots, electric alien eels, and Green Ninja suit wearing green blob spewing ooze do have in common being in a robotic factory? Nothing. There isn't seemingly any rhyme or reason to anything. Second: Controls. Controls are floaty. Ledge grabing does not feel solid as it sometimes grab sometimes don't. It is fairly inconsistent. Whikle trying to go down through platform, she keeps grabing edges, but she does not when I am trying to. Also, Way too often I try to jump of ledges but it would not register. The collision between the character and floor seems off, or simply does not offer wiggle room, often making me fall over and over for. Animation also often get stuck in a falling state in the border of platforms etc. Movement and animations are too slow, and I often get hit by enemies while behind them or in between animations. Other things are small details, but the map movement is a snail pace, so trying to scour the map or move around is a real pain. Enemies have way to much HP, making combat longer than they should. Basically, this game is visually beautiful, and seem to have a lot of great ideas but seems to be lacking overall creative direction and any kind of polish. The finished game feel like it was done by a team of solid designers that each had their own ideas, and just crammed everything in stitching things together.

Ok le jeu est "génial". C'est à dire qu'il a tout pour l'être mais il a des défauts qui sont absolument rédhibitoires. Il est sublime, l'histoire donne envie, l'ambiance punk fait rêver. Sauf que... Le fait que le moindre ennemi prenne une quantité de coups absurde pour mourir et que ça ruine le rythme du jeu, admettons. Ca peut plaire et je sais que certains metroidvania que j'ai adoré fonctionnent comme ça. Mais alors : perdre TOUTE ma progression parce que le menu de démarrage s'ouvre d'office sur "nouvelle partie" et qu'à la sélection de ma sauvegarde, elle est d'office écrasée au profit de la nouvelle sans possibilité de récupération, c'est purement et simplement mal fait. Pas de message "êtes vous sur de vouloir écraser cette sauvegarde" ? pas de sécurité en appuyant longuement sur un bouton, rien. Sauvegarde et progression perdu. Ca m'a dégouté, j'ai désinstallé le jeu.

The game is very unique and really fun! The areas are very unique feeling and have great atmosphere and the audio is great. Combat is solid, I'm usually bad at parrying and in this game I can't do it consistently so I just don't. Some enemies can juggle the hell out of you and there's 1 enemy the frog mutant lancer who flat out can hit you before you get near them. But overall the combat is fun and solid. Overall if you're looking for a metroidvania treat this is it! There is one thing that has stopped me from completing the game..the last area keeps crashing. I tried it on different settings, tried switching to Windows; even tried it on my girlfriend's computer and the final area crashes a ton and has some lag spikes. I've played the entire game fine up until this spot and it's frustrating to lose progress to random crashes. To even get to it I had to try about 7-10 times before I got through it and was able to quickly grab a save point.

I really want to like this game, the artstyle, music and characters with their voice acting are all phenomenal, the controls are okay although somewhat floaty and I found the exploration part really fun. What really kills it for me however is the constant knockback and stunlocks paired with the absence of iframe which gives you no time to recover, once you're hit and on the floor, you can't even dodge to recover. Enemies can shotgun you (multiple hits in a single small window) when your knocked down instantly killing you at times. This is especially noticeable once you start encountering ranged enemies and they get to be bigger groups. Then there is the issue of losing track of your character, the devs decided that when your hit, you flash white and semi-transparent, not a good idea at all and there is no way of changing this, no accessibility options.

Графика и сюжетка - да, все остальное тупо нет: очень душные мобы,в какой-то момент тебя закрывают в комнатке и они валят просто толпами, а награда за это месиво - немного денег и все. Уровня сложности нету (не все любят азиатский режим). Сохранялки не хилят, а хилят только тепалки и то, только тогда когда тепаешься. Самих тепалок очень мало. Вкладка "новая игра" идет первой,хотя во всех играх, что я играла, после начала она идет второй,а первой "продолжить". Я из-за этого чуть не прое... прохождение.