Treachery in Beatdown City

So, 3% of players have beaten the second boss. And there's a reason for this. Treachery is a semi turn based brawler. You navigate a city map, get into scuffles, and during fights you can pause time and program in strings of attacks. Problem #1 - Nearly everything you do can be countered, and enemy counter rates are based on their current hp. This means you need to whittle them with low damage high acc attacks before you start opening up, but sometimes they just counter the low damage high acc attack and it's rng. Problem #2 - Resources are limited, maps are big, and movement is ungodly slow. You might think I'm exaggerating, but half of the reason I burned out of this game on my second hour (and 97% of players burned out before then) is because walking between two points on the map takes a genuinely comical amount of time. Backtracking to grab more items from a side route feels like a punishment for being thorough. Problem #3 - The writing feels like an episode of Archer, but only in a bad way. And there's a ton of it. And the provocation for most fights is that there's a character being annoying. This means you're spending most of your time reading, and you're specifically reading about characters being annoying. If it bothers you even a little, it'll wear through faster than flesh touching pavement at 75mph. Despite all of this, I do think there's a good *idea* in here. A lot of thought has gone into the mechanics, and if the game clicks with you there's a ton of content. It did not click with me, and it did not click with 97% of players, but who knows. Maybe you'll be the one.

The game isn't bad by any means, but it was way too repetitive for me to finish it. The overworld is almost pointless and the game really just boils down to walking from one fight to another with the same enemy types and same strategies over and over again. Once you figure out an optimal series of moves, there is almost no reason to deviate from that and breeze through most fights. As for the dialogue, it is occasionally funny but more often than not, it overstays its welcome too, constantly making the same types of social commentary jokes over and over again. If it was just a quick 2 hour game for a few bucks, I feel it would be a much easier sell

Esse jogo é aquele tosquinho bonitinho, usa o politicamente correto de forma incorreta, mistura Beat'em Ups com RPG. Ele me trouxe sensações nostálgicas, o velho desafio de enfrentar subchefes tendo como desfecho o chefe final, bem inspirado em elementos do filme; "O último Dragão", adaptados para os tempos atuais, um dos protagonistas é negão luta kung-fu e até se chama Bruce só faltou ter como sobrenome Leroy *_*. Achei que ficaria perdido com as mecânicas mas a forma orgânica que o tutorial foi colocado pelos desenvolvedores fez a game play fluir de forma gostosa, aprovado!

[h2]Finally found the old school nostalgia hit I've been looking for![/h2] Treachery in Beatdown City takes me back to the days of Double Dragon, River City Ransom, Bad Dudes, and all the other NES-era beat 'em ups with some OG Final Fantasy under the hood to create a sweet 8-bit fighting RPG. For the first time in literal decades, I found a game that [b][i]feels[/i][/b] exactly like ones I'd played in the 80s, but also has new elements added that make it interesting and fun. The gameplay starts out with basic moves and combos that are unique to each of the three playable characters. Aside from certain story-mode fights, you can choose any character/fighting style and rock your enemies in a number of different ways. You can find items along your journey that will aid you in battle. The writing is extremely tongue-in-cheek, never takes itself seriously, lampoons just about everyone and everything, and (again) really feels like writing you'd find in any old NES game. As the story progresses, the complexity of battles and combos ramps up alongside a level of difficulty that is expertly dialed in. Fights start out very easy to allow you to find your way, but become increasingly more challenging. While the going gets quite tough toward the end, nothing in this game ever feels impossible. If you died, it was your fault. I like this because the game is a challenging enough to be engaging - it never gets boring because it's too easy nor does it get frustratingly difficult of sadism. In addition to great balance/difficulty, I have to shout out the items and inventory system. Each item is single-use and you can only find them along the way, preventing item hoarders like me from stockpiling ungodly amounts of items and ruining the gameplay balance. Instead, players have to be judicious about when and where to use items to maximum effect or when to take the L and rotate to another character. By the end, I had [i]just enough[/i] items on hand to beat the last few encounters. The addition of hidden combo techniques keeps fights interesting as well. You can inflict additional status effects that are more or less effective depending on enemy types. The list of possible moves accumulated by end allows for a staggering amount of different combinations. I still haven't found all of the hidden techniques as of the time of this review and something I plan to do using the chapter select unlocked by beating the game. The banter between characters will either land with you or not. Some jokes made me laugh out loud and some fell a bit flat, but the overall style and content kept me entertained throughout the whole game and was another area where I felt the nostalgia shine through. It felt like I was reading text that would be in an 80s game: direct and to the point, somewhat ham-fisted and goofy, but updated with modern references. If it's not your jam, you can always just skip the text, but there are some good gems in there worth reading. Soundtrack is bangin! Lastly, this game is perfect on the Steamdeck. Even though TiBC is not fully verified as of the time of this review, I had [b]zero[/b] issues playing on the deck. The turn-based nature of the combat in this game made it easy to enter a game-and-chill flow state on couch with some TV on in the background, making it a ultimate relaxing nostalgic gaming experience.

After finishing Treachery In Beatdown City, all I can say is that this game SUCKS, and it is one of the worst games I've ever played. This game has so many issues that it would be impossible to point them all out here, but I'll try: Firstly, let's talk about combat. It is not a usual beat 'em up game. The developers tried something different, and it's more like a turn-based game. This combat system ruins all the fun and enjoyment. Would you like to play a game where, most of the time, you are waiting for a bar to fill up so you can execute a move? If you answered yes, then go ahead and buy this game, but if you answered no, stay away. You wait for a bar to fill up and gather FP so you can pull off some powerful moves, but it's a miracle if you can hit enemies with these powerful moves. Because enemies counter your stronger moves, all your resources are gone. The whole combat system is fundamentally flawed. As if this isn't enough, the game introduces different mechanics after mechanics, different enemy types after enemy types. It unnecessarily complicates things. It turns the combat system into f*cking rocket science. This dog sh*t game could have been ten times better if it had a simple combat system. Secondly, the writing. OH MY F*CKING GOD! The writing isn't just bad. It's unbelievably bad. The dialogue tries to be funny, but fails. It is CRINGE! The last act of the game is a pure nightmare. It was just text after text, dialogue after dialogue. The writer thought of himself as Hideo Kojima, I guess. I thought the latest Disney shows had bad writing. Those shows are Shakespeare compared to this junk. Thirdly, the graphics. In-game graphics are decent, but the cutscenes are eye sore. Not a single character looks like a human. They are hideous and vomit-inducing. Seriously though, what's the point of designing these characters so ugly? Overall, this whole game is a dumpster fire and beyond saving. You might be thinking, Isn't there anything nice about this game? The answer is no. God-awful combat, vomit-inducing graphics, dialogue that is more cringe-worthy than My Hero Academia fan fiction. Mix it all together, and you get a sh*t show. This sh*t show is called Treachery In Beatdown City

This game is fantastic. Hybrid turn based real time/action has always been my jam. Check this one out! It might be a bit silly for some people but it also has more heart than most games, more content then most games, and well, a lot of other fun stuff.

Didnt pass the tutorial because it got too wordy and indepth with boring combos and stats. Maybe the game is amazing, but I cant be arsed with the very mundane start

I would love to give this game a positive review, but due to several saves getting erased several hours in and several different soft-locks when trying to progress, I cannot. The game is fun, but the current bugs I've encountered have me wishing I could get a refund.

An extremely fun, unique blend of beat-'em-ups and JRPGs, which results in deep tactical gameplay. Don't play this if you're looking for an arcade game - in fact, I'd say this game makes much more sense to RPG players than beat-em-up fans. Obviously, if you're into both, this game is a delight to play.

Interesting combo mechanics using menu. It would help to know exactly how FP (fight points) are generated other than "strike hits and you may get some" but fight flows relatively well. As long as you can generate FPs somehow, fights are actually kinda fun. An issue is that the grapple resist mechanic on enemies not nearly dead makes grapple basically finshers and strikes are what you will be using most of the time so the strike guy is clearly the most viable one and the grapple guy the "joke" one. This may change if grapples are more effective in the future from the start of the fight and not just when guys are almost dead anyway. The fact that resisted grapples waste LOTS of FPs do not help at all. This is actually a game that I enjoyed playing but it is simply too short for its price tag and feels unfinished with the amount of content it currently have (despite having its release almost 3 years ago). Devs seem to be working on updates so it may change at some point and would be glad to recommend it then but for now, it just feels like a very promissing (paid) demo.