Dark Light: Survivor

I'm a bit torn when reviewing this game, as it can be fun and I did want to support the developer after their previous release, but there's a couple of things holding it back. Some of which are quite significant. it's an arena shooter with rogue-like elements. You go into a self-contained area and hordes of enemies pop up, then you blast or stab them to death. Random power-ups appear that buff your attacks and you earn xp to boost modest skills outside of the combat that are permanent over runs. It would be a lie to suggest that these systems give it much depth, like it was Diablo crossed with some shooty-shooty-bang-bang. You definitely get lots of the latter, but not so much of the former. So whilst there's some fun builds you find yourself getting / choosing, it isn't long before it feels like you've seen it all and any upgrades don't change that. It would be charitable saying this has level design. There's a space and somewhat varied enemy types appear in that space, along with somewhat varied boons and weapons. It's a "level" and someone "designed" it, and there's gameplay mechanics that someone designed too (with far more nuance, it has to be said), but, well......the former is quite low-hanging fruit. You go in and repeat it over and over, annnnd ooooover again. Story elements are so-so, but not really much of a focus. The random buffs can be stacked if you repeatedly choose the same one, and several different types can be incorporated. When sporting the maximum number of buffs, and each type, it can be an enjoyable power-trip as you annihilate the enemy. That's about it really when it comes to the positives. But that's the only sense of change the game has and for me it was a rather limited experience. In three or so hours of playing this I had made progression to unlock another level and another character. However: Since they pretty much played the same as all the other content, it didn't feel like progress at all. On the one hand you have some fun and intense action, aided by a pumping soundtrack. On the other hand: Environments aren't anything more than basic places you fight in, it gets repetitive really quickly despite efforts at varying the flow of the combat, and your weapons sound pathetic. I wouldn't knock a game just because a shotgun sounds like a gnat farting or a submachine gun has all the sonic oomph of a nerf cannon. No, the real deal-breaker for me is that the game has rubbish performance, even more-so after an update to....er....improve the performance? Prior to this update my hardware was okay-ish to do 60fps at 1080p, at least until enemy numbers onscreen got quite large and lots of particle effects tanked it into the forties. Now when I start a run with hardly anything onscreen it's in the low twenties, so unless the steam fps counter is now borked...that fps has gone backwards. Even if it is borked I can still quantify that my gpu sounds like a jet engine taking off within 5 seconds of starting a level, then it slows, then it revs up again loudly, then it slows and over and over again. I played Hi-fi rush to see if it had this behaviour, nope. Spiderman miles morales? nope. Resident evil 4 remake? nope. The first is unreal engine, it runs fine. The second and third are other engines, they run fine. This game runs on Unity. Is it unfair comparing an indie title to AAA releases? Yes and no. Yes, for obvious reasons. No, because this sounded like it was violently murdering my gpu and I don't recall any "full" 3d game made by indie devs in Unity that had any different behaviour. They've all looked worse and run worse than games on alternative engines. Yet this game doesn't look amazing or appear to be doing anything that should tax my hardware considering, you know, it was doing this with about three enemies present. This negative is mostly because of this and the uninvolving game-play. Their previous game was an excellent metroidvania with atmospheric ambience and an immersive structure. This follow-up has none of that, and nor does it have the depth to be especially compelling within this simplified format. Prior to the performance update that has ruined it, it was okay for playing in bite-size chunks and I would have given it a "meh" out of ten. Now that it runs even worse, not just in terms of performance but actually sounding unhealthy to play if I want my gpu to live (which, I do), I add that up to the other downsides and it's a no.