Fantastic Game !!
-- No, Seriously, this game is Awesome !!
First off, it does have a bit of that 'janky' feel, and unfortunately, one of it's biggest weaknesses is that 'matte brown / dull gray' look a lot of games that use assets have,
which can put off a lot of people based on 'looks' alone, (perhaps it was a 'biome' issue - the starting area colour palette)
that said, if you can get past that, the game is freaking GREAT (!!)
This is one of those games that 'justify' steam considering it has such a horrendous amount of garbage on it,
- SUPER fun addictive game play loop - because of the randomness of the starting and shop items you will always have that 'one more' run urge, to try new stuff and see how far you get compared to before
- you almost always die of something really 'stupid' and always say, "OMG ! No Way ! That didn't happen !!11" and get that 'one more' this time I'll make it feeling lol, (yes, that's another 'one more' reason)
- it 'looks' kinda jank in videos but in gameplay it's actually _extremely_ smooth and responsive, surprisingly so in fact, especially for an 'indie' game and made by one guy -
- the guns feel really good, sure it's not AAA quality but surprisingly fun and addictive to shoot, this is especially true if you get the guns you really like AND double-up by having two guns at once AND being able to use skills / abilities that pump up your shots, add projectiles, etc etc
This is how this game is, looks very unassuming and 'assety' but when you actually play it it's extremely well made and hits all the right 'notes'
- TONS of different items and combination synergies, this is yet another thing you won't notice until you play a solid few hours -
it's very easy to have a few starting runs (when you first get the game) and feel not much special going on and dying and wondering what's the point,
But then you start again and you get this REALLY cool setup (along with finding 'treasures' along the way and stage-clear items etc) that all the sudden you realize "DAMN ! I got some really good stuff going on !!" - and having a blast blasting things and feeling like there's _No Way_ anything is going to stop you !!!11
Then of course you die for the dumbest reason and think, "FRIG ! How did I die of that !!??" , lol,
and of course you get the urge to do it all again hoping you get another cool setup and thinking _for sure_ I'm gonna beat it this time !!!11
- shockingly 'honest' developer in that the tag-line, "be careful cause every step might be your last" is _Exactly_ how this game plays out lol,
one second of distraction / lack of effort and BOOM you die for the cheesiest reason, lol I never had a game where so many deaths were 'so close' yet so far,
this is absolutely the game to get if you're completely sick of all the incredibly cheesy and dumbed-down "difficulties" in games nowadays,
This game absolutely does not hold your hand and you can forget 'balancing' etc, - which is AWESOME because thats' the whole point of a 'real' game - to build the 'sandbox' structure you can play in and whatever happens 'happens' - both for "good" and 'bad'.
Absolutely fantastic game there's obviously a lot more to say, but for now hopefully that gives you an idea and you check it out,
here are some combinations possible (only a few out of a bazillion) for how you can synergize things --
- two guns instead of one, which means you can double up machine guns, freezing guns, etc, with each 'hand' being the left or right mouse button,
an extremely elegant simple design that feels really good to use, and you'll find that using a specific gun for a specific situation is a 'thing' in this game - yes, deciding which gun to use at which time can actually be extremely useful, especially since guns have a variety of effects that drastically help against certain monsters
- there are a HUGE variety of 'types' of gun attacks, such as 'spraying' machine guns that shoot a lot of bullets but do little of anything else,
compared to guns that shoot a huge 'bullet' very second or two but when hitting the enemy they go FLYING back and get 'knocked back' in a real way,
there are -
explosives, fire, freezing, poison, chemical, etc etc, many have specific effects that include 'physics' elements
- there are 'volumetric' guns that 'spray' an area of effect, experienced gamers will know this as the proverbial 'freezing' gun that blasts a 'cold' field which is one of the coolest types of guns ever -
yes this game has that (!!)
- there are 'summoning' monsters in this game and you can get items that add 'cloning' tubes that increase the amount of summons you can have at any given time (along with skills etc that do that)
- there are a variety of dodges, runs, dashes, 'fire-trails' etc, movement skills is a thing in this game so if you like to be 'acrobatic' while you play this WILL hit the right spot (something which is extremely rare in 'top-down' types of games)
- there is shielding and armor, you can get shields in this game (but there is no actual 'blocking' you need to do), which allows you to build your guy up more defensively if you want, use a shield instead of two guns, last longer but not such a 'Rambo' experience - lol
- you can get 'small' items that give you many different bonus effects, i.e. 'rate of fire', extra armor, extra summoning, etc etc
- there are UPGRADES that as you get xp playing you can use to permanently unlock upgrades to make every starting run better,
this game has permanent meta-progression, it's not super huge skill trees but does have _some_ that makes a solid difference on starting your runs
- it has 'upgrade' nodes on the stage map that allow you to DOUBLE every stat for an item,
making a HUGE difference for anything you really like to use,
i.e. if you have an item that has '+15 rate of fire', if you upgrade it it will become '+30 rate of fire' - that's awesome and it's great to use items after upgrading them - you really notice the difference
- game has GREAT music, if you love high energy techno / somewhat metalish music this hits the spot perfectly,
there is a good variety of tracks and they play at the perfect time (when enemies are around) and it fades out during quiet moments,
it's all these 'little' touches that add up and makes you realize what a cool game it is - even though unfortunately it does have that drab muddy brown assety look to it.
The (lone) developer is a programmer minded type of guy (super nice guy) and you can tell he made a solid gaming experience but it just lacks that 'magical' artistic presence you'd get from a game like WoW or something
This is the type of game that if it could get redone with a solid artistic direction and have solid physics added to the shooting hits and enemy feedback would be a 9.5 out of 10 experience,
for now it's an amazing game just realize it's one guy that made it and he spent his effort in the programming side of things not adjusting colour values, lol
Fantastic game one of the best games I ever bought on steam, I just hope it gets tweaked more to be more 'epic' and more playable in a longer, deeper kind of way !
Also - never even got into talking about multiplayer - supposedly you can do BOTH 'couch' co-op AND 'remote play' co-op,
I can only imagine how much MORE fun it would be to play this MP lol,
for only 7 bucks it's an absolute Steal lol
(Please note this is the 'top-down' twin-stick version of the game "Kiborg" - if you love having wave / horde attack rounds with a noticable upgrade of a cool random item every round and pure action without all the 'filler' nonsense in gaming nowadays - then this and Kiborg are the game to get (!!) )
(Kiborg is a 3rd person hack+slash melee and shooting game that puts you in an 'arena' to fight against hordes of mutants, punks, cyborgs etc, it's a fantastic game, a great compliment to a more bite-sized game like this)
