Generally, I'll start a review by detailing the story. In this case, that is both an easy and impossible task. It's easy because the premise is fairly straight-forward: You play as an amnesiac girl trying to escape a department store infested with monsters. But it's impossible because, . . . well, nothing is ever said clearly. Very early on you learn that you were captured by a doctor who, presumably, turned you into a killing machine. But how much of what you're seeing is real? How much is made up in her head, a figurative interpretation of reality? This also isn't helped by the, frankly, poor translations from Korean to English. I've heard some say that the English voices were AI; I don't know if that's true. The voices *seem* to emote like they're real actors, but between the poor translation and the non-existent localization of the script, I wouldn't be surprised if the actors really didn't know what they were supposed to be saying or emoting so they just did a bunch of bad line readings with no direction. There's no way to change the voices to their original Korean, and I think being able to do so would've helped.
The gameplay, however, is still fun. It's a roguelike, so I won't bore you with rehashing the mechanics in detail. You fight enemies in small arenas and get power-ups. You fight bosses to move on to more challenging areas. When you die, you lose your power-ups and have to start again on the top floor, but you keep different types of currency that can be spent on different bonuses to your attributes. There are three characters to play as, two of whom are unlocked over the course of the game. The characters have four weapons each, all of which play differently than one another, so you have some variety in terms how you want to tackle the game.
I ended up playing on medium graphics so as to not overstrain my computer, but nothing really looked "bad." There were moments were things looked greasy, like looking through the bottom of a coke bottle, but it wasn't awful. I've played things like Morrowind and Deus Ex; I don't mind if characters and surroundings look like they were made with legos and had a poorly aligned texture. But there might be a few out there that need the highest graphical fidelity. Their mileage may vary, but I feel that most will still be okay with what they see.
If we're talking about graphics, though, we have to talk about the main character, Black. Between the curves and the Alita-eyes, it's obvious that her character model is where most of the work went. Not that that's a bad thing; you'll be spending a lot of time looking at her while playing the game. But she lacks any facial animations at all. I have a feeling this is why she's wearing a mask. But this problem expands to the other characters too, Blue and White, who have uncovered faces. And the less said about other characters in the cinematics, the better. The enemies all seem to have decent animations, though, which is by far more important.
The hidden gem of this game in my opinion, however, is the setting itself: The department store. It's just such a surreal environment. It's a familiar setting, as who doesn't have a local mall they've gone to. But exploring it abandoned is a weird experience, even more so as you go from floor to floor. One floor looks like people just dropped everything and ran, another looks overgrown like it was emptied some years ago, and another is frozen in a single cataclysmic moment. It kind of reminds me of those liminal space pictures that were a fad years ago.
I can't really talk about the game without addressing the elephant in the room: The comparisons to Stellar Blade. Having played SB, I can confidently say that it's like comparing apples to oranges; Stellar Blade is an Action/Adventure with light RPG elements, whereas Disorder is a roguelike. I feel the only reason people think there's any comparison is because they both feature a sexy cybernetic ninja in a metallic skinsuit fighting monsters, and Disorder released in that 12-month span of time between SB being a Playstation 5 exclusive and it's PC release, so there were a lot of expectations heaped upon it.
On one hand, I love this game, which is why I'm giving it a thumbs up. However, it's hard for me to recommend it either, as there's plenty of jank in the animations and item descriptions. It was a fun time *for me,* and I feel that the right sort of player will have a great time. But for others it'll be a weird, awkward, and ultimately short-lived experience. At $30, it's not something I think general audiences would like, and even die-hard roguelike fans would rather wait for this to be on sale (though to be fair, they probably already have their favorites they won't abandon.) But if you're a fan of sexy waifus and liminal space photos, it'll scratch your itch.
