Theatre of Doom

Just a fantastic top down, twin stick action game. Looks slick, sounds slick, and plays at a slower pace that manages to avoid being frustrating and is actually really fun. I'm not saying its a masterpeice, but its definitely worth the $10 risk to find out if you like it. It's atleast worth that to someone who's meh on it. I know I don't have much time on it, but the game is a small experience that just gets harder.

Fun little twin-stick shooter with a 'lasso' variation where you lock-on to the enemy by clicking the right stick (ugh), then you're tethered to them making it easy to shoot or whack them with your sword/bat. Bonus Ecto if you finish them off with your sword. The levels are short and perfect for jumping-in for a few minutes at a time on the Steam Deck. Very addicting gameplay loop so you always want to finish just one more! Jumping is critical for hopping around the platforms to avoid getting surrounded. Keep mashing the jump button if you fall off the ledge to make it back. There are crates that block your path you can smash to gain pickup items. The broken crate debris stay scattered around and hinder your movement so you must jump around them to avoid or sweep them away with your bat. The controls are a little wonky, it's hard to lock-on consistently. The camera movement can also be wonky making it a little more challenging, and sometimes the lighting gets really dark making it more likely to fall off the edge. The top bar is not your health meter and no idea what it is. Your health is the little number next to the little blue heart. You collect red orbs and a white orb but no idea what they do or their purpose. Upgrade abilities can be purchased with Ecto- some must be purchased before others but it's not clear which ones or why. There's a mode you can activate after collecting enough Ecto but couldn't figure out how to activate/start the mode without remapping the controls as follows: Made the left bumper the lock-on, and the left-trigger: jump. This lets you keep your thumbs on the sticks and not have to use the face buttons as much. Then made A and X multi-shot and Ectorage respectively. Not perfect but a big improvement for me. A fun and a bit of a unique game that well worth it on sale. Really looking forward to see what this developer makes next!

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