Heartless & Dreadful : Return by 72 Hours

My only complaint is that some inputs (such as the launcher for the claws) can be a little finnicky and lead you to getting hit. otherwise, its a great action game I will likely be returning to right after this review is typed out. You can Juggle enemies with weapons with various moves that can enable you to bully enemies in the air and on the ground. (Jump cancel the flying enemies, poison them, bully them, kill them). Buy it, it's cheap and brings you back to the ps2 era.

A great little DMC-like game. The solo developer behind this one has done a rather impressive job, and definitely understands what makes the games of this genre fun. It's one of those smaller scale projects made with a lot of passion put into it that will always have a special place in my heart. Definitely worth checking out if you're into character action games.

In all honesty I tried this game back in 2023 and at the time it was still fun despite the lack of content, the music was nice and it had a great vibe to it, in 2025 I tried it again and HOLY CRAP it's gotten uphill dramatically, sure there's still bugs and jank but the enemy variety and combat feels significantly better. Definitely give this game a try, I'd give it a solid 8.5/10, once it gets polished out more I can see this being a new top favorite game of mine and I never even played this genre until this game.

Very fun.

Fun game, feels like a ps2 game in pretty much the best ways possible, very much scratches that devil may cry/hack'n'slash/character action whatever you wanna call it itch.

I genuinely love this game. The vibe of this game is like no other, an edgy, 2000's, furry, hellish-dystopian, spectacle-hack-and-slash + visual novel. Another game I have walked into thinking it would be an hour or so of "dumb fun" turning out to be a beautiful labor of love from a very dedicated game dev. I have seldom seen the amount of effort from other devs that Kirillian has put in here, I definitely respect it. The visuals are what caught my eye seeing this on steam, I'm a sucker for an inspired artstyle. I'm really not sure if you have to have grown up exactly when I did with the "2000's early internet edge" to better appreciate the vibe and artstyle but I'm sure it helps a ton. Nevertheless I actually stopped to look around in many levels just because of how pretty they were and I can imagine a lot of other people would feel the same. The bold use of color along side the unique environments really does create a memorable feel for this game. The scale of many levels was impressive as well. (Sometimes to the detriment of my FPS but my PC is old) The gameplay is solid and satisfying offering 4 ranged and 4 melee weapons to switch on the fly. The combos are simple enough that I think most people wont have trouble getting into it but offer enough of a skill ceiling to feel really satisfying to pull off some advanced combos switching from weapon to weapon. Any DMC fan will immediately know that using your whole arsenal rather than spamming one move is going to be the most effective way to rack up style points and damage with this game being no different. It took a couple hours to get the controls down and it surprisingly wasn't frustrating. The learning process felt fair and if I wasn't doing damage or kept getting hit, it felt like I myself was to blame, I didn't feel like the game was cheating or not explaining something to me. Dying over and over again to a boss was the result of ME neglecting one of the tools the game gave to me. Once I employed it - it clicked into place. The story is interesting even if it slightly lost me at some points. Basically you're a demon lord in a team of fellow demon lords competing in a tournament to take over a certain amount of worlds before 72 hours, (hence part of the title) If you fail to do so, you will be killed. This isn't a real timer or anything though so there isn't any looming pressure if you're worried about that. It's funny how a couple billboard texture NPCs can actually get me pretty invested and even be thought provoking at times. This game does a great job at knowing when to be goofy and when to be serious. (as serious as a game like this can get) I thought it did a good job developing a relationship between characters with genuine support for one another and lighthearted jokes and jabs. [spoiler] I'm on the ending now and it actually has a system where you have to wait 4 ACTUAL days to progress. Me? I think that's pretty cool but I can see how that may annoy others. Oh well, can't please everyone, right? I may edit my review and come back to add a few more thoughts on the ending once I'm closer to %100 completion, I don't know. [/spoiler] Unfortunately, every GEM -no matter how beautiful- has a few flaws. Through no fault of their own the dev is not a native English speaker so there are a few lines or bits of dialogue that feel slightly unnatural or can be misinterpreted in minor ways. Still, it is usually easy to understand what the dev (or character) means in these few scenarios through the context of the situation. Minus the hiccups, the dialogue and especially the grammar is genuinely impressive for a non-native speaker with advanced punctuation that even I neglect to use. A minor gripe I had with combat was how enemy attacks, specifically boss attacks, felt like they miss sometimes. Sounds a bit weird to complain about NOT getting hit but when you're timing a parry and then the boss whiffs an attack because you're too close to them, it feels a bit off. SLOW TURRET SECTION... enough said. (I mean it's only like 5 minutes but man, gimme more to shoot at or something. lol) I've had a few bugs during my playthrough but the dev has been an AMAZING help in patching them super fast! Genuinely so cool and inspiring to see a dev with passion work hard to make sure their game is playable and polished! There's definitely more to talk about but I suck at writing and structuring reviews so I'll end it here. I love this game and it's a new favorite of mine. The aesthetic, THE MUSIC, the gameplay, the humor, the characters, the secrets. They all hit the spot for me. I got this game on sale so my only regret was not buying the game at full price. <3

a very good game

Pros Still gets occasional updates/bug fixes movement isn't very strict, it's actually so lenient you can glide across the map by spamming aerial moves one fully fleshed out character and four extra characters unlocked at the end story isn't bad, even with occasional unnecessary/meta dialogue Cons few annoying enemies, but most are being reworked as of writing this the way bosses are stunned feels more like a souls game (hit until they get staggered. wish it was more like vergil who is open to being combo'd at the end of certain attacks) some tracks are unfinished so they aren't officially released 7/10 very good for your first game

II had a lot of fun playing this game, the combat is good, the story is very interesting and I liked the characters, both in design and personality. I had a lot of fun with the jokes and dialogs, it made the very game unique in my vision The only problem is about getting 100%, probably a skill-issue on my part, but I found it kind of hard to figure out how to get some of the trophies. Anyways, 10/10 would play it again (sorry if my english is bad, it's not my native language)

a little stiff in walk animations but plays well and am enjoying it so far.