The Fang is an action-adventure game with light survival elements. I was drawn in by the intrigue of everything being a mystery and the monochromatic pixel graphics, but actually playing the game was equal parts frustrating and unsatisfying.
[h1]STORY[/h1]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2364577362
There is no concrete narrative. What I gleamed from the gameplay is that you are a man on some sort of mission in a facility of unknown origin and purpose. You make your way through the facility in an attempt to get to where the secret is held. You make your way past the various enemies and security bots and arrive at the secret- some sort of large device with a mysterious object contained within. You set your explosives and prepare to leave, but security catches you and you end up caught in the blast.
I was very disappointed that the mystery was only a lure; there was no satisfying story anywhere. Story elements are practically devoid in actual gameplay and just reinforce the idea that the facility is old and mysterious. There are 5 eggs hidden in the game and destroying each gives an achievement; this is the closest we ever get to actual story. The only thing that actually got me through the slog of gameplay was the mystery of closure, but after seeing the ending I was honestly left really mad.
[h1]GAMEPLAY[/h1]
The game is a 2D action-adventure game. You explore the facility and find the various keys and switches to allow you to go deeper. Controls are basic but you have to figure them all out by yourself. Movement is pretty basic and on an invisible grid. You cannot run which gets very annoying when you have to backtrack (which is often in late-game). Combat is both unavoidable and clunky. [list]
[*]You have a blade and can do a 3-hit combo, the third swing being a sonic boom. You also have a pistol with infinite ammo but limited range. All projectiles can hit a target in range regardless of elevation.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2364605602
[*]Most deal damage on contact but their hitboxes are very inconsistent. Sometimes I got damaged even though their sprite hadn’t fully entered a grid tile. Sometimes I got damaged when they were just walking away. Likewise, they can easily attack diagonally whereas all your attacks, except the sonic boom, are linear. Trying to avoid enemies AND line up an attack is tedious.
[*]Enemies have brief invulnerability after getting hit so you may attack too quickly and get hit when you are waiting to attack again. Likewise, getting hit knocks almost everyone back, including you. You may get knocked out of a room by an enemy to find out that enemies respawn when you re-enter a room.
[*]Enemies drop “energy” orbs upon death. You can carry up to 3 and they are displayed in the pill icon in the upper-right. However, the spawning seems random and only being able to carry 3 is very annoying. Energy is spent on opening boxes with goodies like first-aid kits and bottled water but you will ALWAYS need 3 pips. There are also empty chests and trapped chests.
[*]Healing items are scarce. You will ONLY find them in boxes which means you MUST farm enemies for orbs. You might also get poisoned when damaged. Since you need 3 pips to open a chest, you might be near death’s door just trying to farm up enough enemies to open one.
[*]The game also features a stamina bar. It naturally depletes at a rather quick rate and you can refill it by drinking water. There is no notification noise for running empty so you have to keep an eye on it at all times. You have a canteen with 3 sips and can find 1 sip water bottles in boxes. The issue here is that rooms can be HUGE and combined with your slow movement speed, trying to explore or backtrack is punished. When you are out of stamina, you slowly lose health. Thus, there will ALWAYS be a timer when playing. You can refill the canteen at certain pipes in the wall, but these are VERY sparse.
[*]Save points are spread out. Dying often meant losing a lot of progress and having to redo an annoying area.
[*]The final boss gives no hit reaction. You have to rely on the combo counter to see if your attacks are working when it is exposed (the combo counter is otherwise useless in the game).[/list]
The combination of clunky combat and indirect timer made for a very stressful and frustrating experience. In a game supposedly about exploring to uncover a mystery, I felt no joy in exploring or making progress. The game took me just under 2 hours including reloading saves because I ran out of supplies (which was frequent).
[h1]VISUALS[/h1]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2364603223
The game has pixel graphics with a monochromatic palate and a slight chromatic aberration filter. Overall, things look pretty good in terms of sprites and effects. It honestly felt like I was exploring a ramshackle facility and sifting through its innards. However, I got lost sometimes with how same-y everything looked. Animations are overall okay as well; nothing noteworthy. However, the game has some serious flaws: [list]
[*]The title flickers quite rapidly at the title screen. Getting a game over results in a rather aggressive flickering black and white screen. There really should be an epilepsy warning for this
[*]Pressing switches zooms over to the unlocked room, but it is easy to get confused as to where it is due to the repeating tiles and lack of map
[*]Melee enemies lack any form of attack animation, making melee combat feel floaty
[*]At low HP you hear a heartbeat and the screen shakes horizontally. The shaking, combined with the filter, makes combat more difficult and gave me a headache after a while. Neither can be disabled via options. [/list]
[h1]AUDIO[/h1]
There is no music except for when you do certain key actions and at the end. Overall, the tracks were good and had a lonely, sad, or menacing vibe to it. I honestly couldn’t sit around and enjoy it due to the stamina timer. Sound effects were okay, but I had some issues (mostly nitpicks): [list]
[*]Footstep FX is a short loop; the uneven steps and resulting desynced walking animation annoyed me.
[*]The character makes some grunts when swinging the sword; he sounds a bit too young.
[*]Your pistol and some enemy projectiles make a laser noise. One projectile enemy’s attack is atrociously mixed; it is very loud and might blow your speakers if audio is too high. [/list]
[h1]PERFORMANCE[/h1]
The game ran well but there are some bugs. There are absolutely NO settings/ options whatsoever to tune the game to your liking. [list]
[*]Turning is almost impossible without moving a square. You can turn by VERY gently tapping the d-pad on a controller, but you cannot on KB. This makes combat even more annoying.
[*]I Alt+Tab’d once and the screen froze but action continued.
[*]Despite having the pistol equipped, sometimes I used the sword
[*]Game froze upon opening a rat box [/list]
[h1]OVERALL[/h1]
The mystery from the trailer is left hollow due to having no story, clunky gameplay and various other issues. I honestly had to push myself to finish the game as it just felt very unpolished. Graphical issues and bugs can be ironed out, but the core gameplay really needs tweaking. Without bungling around, my second playthrough took about an hour, 20 mins. It was slightly more bearable by just knowing what to do, but the orb collection and combat still were a huge drag.
This is just my opinion and you may enjoy it. With its cheap price point, this may be a decent purchase if you are curious at all after reading. However, I honestly cannot recommend it, at least in its current state.
[h1][b]5/10
ADVISE AGAINST[/b][/h1]
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