At time of writing, I don't actually remember purchasing this game, nor playing it. Still, the pitch was rather gripping, so I booted it back up to give it a shot.
Initial impressions, it has an option for 4k monitors, which is what I'm playing on, for UI scaling to make things legible. I struggle with this oh so often, so it was rather nice to see. The game even appears to get rare, yearly updates for bugfixes and maintenance, which is nicely commendable. You can see the budget and indie-ness right off with how the graphics are a little jarring - blocky, cube-based maps clashing with 3d models. Music with the habit of looping from the beginning each time you tab out and back in. Crates that when broken, give a squishy, fleshy sound.
The sound design obviously wasn't the focus, either, Same meaty sound from breaking crates when you hit enemies, grunts whenever an enemy is hit that aren't the best sounding and are kind of offputting with how frequent... The intro into the first mission didn't leave the best impression either, with the text seeming bugged as it would cut seemingly cut itself off (maybe a glitch with the 4K?) and framerate dropping when a lot of particle effects entered the screen.
But once I got into the combat, that didn't really matter as much. Responsive and enjoyable with a seemingly endless variety of weapons being fed to me to try (some were simply variations on the same kit, but still had enough change in how they handled to feel rather different) with quick combat and a decent amount of tactical depth to get used to in how you position and kite. Lovely quality of life like a small heal after each combat so that if you play well, you can make up for past mistakes. Interrupts onto enemy casts with windups, an upgrade system so you can take gear that you've found that you like with you as far as you want to - a lot of thought and care seems to have gone into the gameplay side of things such that the smaller gripes with the visuals and sound don't quite interfere, because it just plays so satisfyingly. The bosses will also seem to always give you the gear they use, so if you like how they fought you - you can now use that against your enemies! The level design is a bit uninspired and not very interesting to fight in, but it serves its purpose fine.
Still, there's bugs and mishaps that did detract. On question mark rooms, the 4k interface scaling didn't seem to apply, so whenever there was a random event I simply couldn't read it. I tab in and out a lot, so the music looping on and off whenever I tab back in from the start was very irksome. Stealing from the merchant feels like there's absolutely no downside; I can chew through him so fast, and once I'm done purchasing and upgrading him, I can just use him for experience and a bit of extra, free loot and the merchant on the next floor seems none the wiser. But for £5.80 off sale, and likely even cheaper on, I'd have no issue recommending it if the graphics and lacklustre sound design don't put you off. It plays well, and I'll likely go on to finish this.
This review is part of an ongoing project to go through my library and give every single one paid or notable game a fair assessment and a small written review to go along with them. This is #2 out of #1937, at the time of writing.
