Defect Process

[h1] A Fun and Challenging Game for Combo-Seeking Enthusiasts [/h1] Defect Process strikes a very good balance of challenge, while remaining fair to the player. Enemy attacks and status effects are well telegraphed, the different attack patterns are designated by the unique design of each enemy type, and you are offered a choice of several movement based abilities at the start (and in the middle of) every run. Speaking of abilities, the weapon types you select are very distinct from each other, offering an optional amount of depth for the player to explore. While one can just quickly spam attack with the starting two weapons, as the run continues more challenging enemy types will demand the player to utilize the special attacks of each weapon, which are executed via directional inputs, delayed attack commands, and double taps/quarter circles. The unlockable weapon offers even more complexity, but every weapon rewards those that want to find optimal combos themselves (as the game only details the basic commands for each attack). I have played on both keyboard and controller, and I definitely recommend a controller to make these inputs feel more natural. Each run through the game is also very well paced, with combat sessions being broken up by mini-games and movement-based challenges to earn extra currency for that run. Each run then earns a secondary (permanent) currency that can be used to unlock music, weapons, or even more movement based abilities to be used in future runs. This is a great system to have the player come back for more to earn enough currency to shake up a future run of the game. Even after beating the boss of the run, I can see myself coming back every now and then to try a brand new weapon type, or a new combination of melee/ranged/movement skills. The only thing missing for me in this game is lore to explain what is going on, but I respect that it may be an artistic choice to leave everything unknown to the player. With the level of detail put into the enemy designs and backgrounds though, it does leave me wanting more details about this tech-based world that the developer has built.

This is the Review of someone that finished the game. If you like Character Action, buy it. It's a DMC "Ripoff", but a true ripoff tries to ape off the formula and tropes of a game with nothing unique to it or any kind of quality. This is GOOD. [h1] Story: D (N/A) [/h1] There is no story. You seem to be a bird dude that is trying to escape a program or process. He seems to have a personality seeing as how he can taunt. Yes, it's a rougelike, but its basically Entrophy Effect but open ended, as far as combos go, so don't worry about the rougelike stuff; it's basically Bloody Palace, but you have to upgrade from the very start. [h1] Graphics: B [/h1] It is what it is. You aren't here for the graphics, but it looks like you are at some sort of factory with monsters of some kind. They pop out, though. [h1]Music: A[/h1] The music is okay; I mean, there's a forboding atmosphere. I haven't unlocked all the tracks, but I doubt we were getting some Arc System Works-esque bangers, so..... [h1]Gameplay: SS[/h1] The only reason this isn't getting a SS is because of the weird enemy design and gravity, but we will get to that. The game is a bit experimental, and even though there's definitely DMC in there, the weapons are different enough to warrant unique combos, even though the 2D nature of the game means that it's more akin to a fighting game. Unlike some other creators that tried and failed to make a rougelike (alongside bloody palace for some stupid reason), this game works by virtue of everything mostly being meter upgrades and weapons. You do some light platforming with no real threat to get crystals to upgrade your power, then fight more enemies in a sealed battle. You rinse and repeat until you get to the final boss. You also get blue shards to unlock stuff. It's a combat game with nothing but fighting, which is good, because the combat lets you do your own thing and make combos while jumping out of harms way. There's even a spear attack from enemies you can ride on, and but beyond style, there's technical stuff like some of the weapons have inertia and interactions with dash and jump cancelling. It's a good character action game all in all. [h1]Weapons: S[/h1] You only have two melee and ranged slots, al-la DMC3, a mobility ability, and some more esoteric abilities. Now, you have a sword that works like Rebellion, with a delayed finisher to knock enemies backwards, alongside a fireball, and a orb that might be the only bad move in the game. Then there's a staff that actually behaves like Cerberus, and has a setplay tornado, alongside a revolver that launches you pretty high up, allowing you to evade some attacks. Not to mention, there's a attack that launches enemies from below. Then there's a pogo attack that works with divekick to allow you bounce off enemies across the battlefield. There's a Scythe that is one of two setplay weapons that allows you to either cut at a close range or send it out in various ways, including launching enemies towards you, and perform a variety of attacks while it sits there. You have a Beowulf/Ifrit/Gilgamesh-esque weapon that gives you a dive kick, and some charge attacks that work by holding a button after attacking. That gets you a rising knee, a power geyser, and a standalone knockback attack, alongside a dive kick that allows you to go with the foes. The final weapon, I'm not so sure about, as it functions like a mini Doppelganger. You perform attacks with a Buster Sword, hold attack, and the next time you PRESS that button, the unique, alternative attack is performed. I think it would work better if it was an ability that recorded the last move you used for any weapon, then allows your clone to repeat the move, either for the previous location or your current location, maybe one for the ground or air. It's still good, but It comes off like it would be better for a Vergil like character as an unlockable alternate mode. You also have a standard pistol, a shotgun that does knockback or freezes an opponment in place, a grenade launcher that shoots rockets and proximity mines that launches, a summoned sword esque ability, that is probably the worst ranged weapon since it's too slow, rather than a mote of energy that quicky homes in on whoever you locked on. You also have a railcannon that works like DmC's charged E&I. There's some mobility tools like a dash that can cancel attacks and allows you to jump far like Mega Man, a teleport that kinda falls off if you understand frame data or have one of the other tools. There's a grappling hook that puts you above an oppoment or pulls them to you. You also have extra skills like flight, which is kinda useless since you can't do anything with it but reposition, a fast fall (that could've been baked into the moveset, alongside hold jump for flying), a quicksilver esque stasis blast, a tool allowing you to place a flag and teleport there, alongside the ability to put a platform in mid air, allowing you to do ground attacks in the sky. They are all in all well made, and serve a purpose, though the spirit blade will definitly take time to get used to. [h1]Enemy Design: SSS[/h1] There's only only major flaw in the design, which is that they tend to not turn around unless you hit them, or taunt them. I don't know why they are like this, but compared to the slop in DMC5 and other games, I can forgive this. They mostly either send projectiles or long range attacks that are pretty deadly, considering you don't always get health refills in stores. There's even one that creates a damaging wall, and a beast that sends homing gloubles of red energy after you. Besides the whole turning around thing, these enemies are what Character Action foes should be like; opponments that can keep you on your toes and keep you from playing a juggle simulator. The final stages takes advantage of the fact that this might be the first Character Action where the protagonist has good combat physics and platforming physics. (as opposed to trying to shoehorn in platforming or basing the gravity around platforming because of this, the later game becomes pretty difficult because of all the projectiles. [h1] Bosses: D [/h1] Sadly, there is no evil bird man that copies your moves and I am dissapointed by this. The final boss feels like stage one. The bosses from gravity circuit feels better than this, though I suppose it's not terrible, but I would've like the boss to have a unique weapon you unlock for your 6th weapon slot, since it's weird and it feels like I should have unlocked something. [h1]Overall Score: SS[/h1] It's not the greatest game, but as far as a base level goes, it's fantastic, and you should play this game if you like Character Action. I'm hoping that this studio's next game is even crazier.

Fun little game, enjoying it so far!

Fun game! I really like the enemy design - there are tons of different kinds of monsters that all behave differently, you're not just fighting the same two monsters or a bunch of reskins of the same monster. The little squeaky bat guys are my favorite! The big guys that send out a slow shield projectile are pretty cool too, they make combat a lot of fun because you're forced to weave in and out of different parts of the arena. As far as EA feedback goes: I think it'd be good to have some audio feedback if you try to shoot your gun when you're out of meter, like some sort of magazine-empty click noise - maybe it's in there and I just didn't notice, dunno. Also the system for using your secondary ability is going to take some getting used to, I got hit a lot because I was trying to use my flight skill but I kept hitting up+b instead of b with no directional input. Guess I should bind flight to up+b next time! Looking forward to the full release!

This reminds me so much of when I was a kid and used to play Double Dragon with my friend! The animations are slick, the arenas are beautiful, the music matches the mood perfectly, and the fights are tense! My only gripe is that ranged weapons are a hassle to use without a mouse, so I've been playing only with sword + skills. Congratulations to the dev! Bravo!

very good and extremely promising for a game that was clearly made on the budget of your average packet of Ramen. my main complaints are: 1: the Y button (or whatever the top face button on your controller of choice is) is dedicated to weapon switching. this makes no sense as just giving the player access to both weapons at once would be far better for game flow and combo flexibility. furthermore, taking your finger off of the attack button to swap weapons and then back to the attack button feels unnatural and stiff, which would be alleviated if it were just a separate attack button. it's an unnecessary function poorly placed on the controller. 2: animations are stiff and sound effects lack impact. this is okay since the game is made by a small developer, but improvement on this with patches or in the dev's next game would be greatly appreciated. overall, I think of Defect Process more as an experiment than as a full game. that's not to say it's bad, but it feels like an excellent proof of concept to either the version of this game after all of the post-launch patches have come through or some other game that this dev has planned down the line. i'd like to end this review with a note to the developer. you've created a fun little brawler with some genuine combo potential, but it feels like a shell of a game due to the barebones presentation and nonexistant level design. i hope you take what's good about this game and either polish it further with patches or take the lessons learned by this game and put them toward a more polished complete product. i think you've come across the bones of something special here, and I hope that you can fill them in in future projects. thank you for reading this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ review.

Despite the name; this game has few defects -- aside of not serving up a plate of nachos and libations to accompany game-play with friends (per stage of course, this is a single-player but super fun to pass the controller around). Defect Process is a unique h&s that deserves it's own cabinet in your local arcade.