Another game Gianni's in and still no gay sex, wasted potential...
Btw for context my first run was on Serve me pain, since then I 100% the game, (All collectables, 2nd playthrough on Murder Machine, and I completed all secret levels on Serve me pain.)
Honestly closest any game has come to rivaling Ultrakill for me and I've got some crazy bias. Gunplay feels awesome the whole way through and despite some people saying it turns into a slog with the final few levels I found them quite enjoyable, though I'm sure I have much more previous experience than the average person. Some of the collectables can be a bit annoying, but none of them are too bad. Some of the enemies could be balanced a bit better, the majority are fine with the exceptions of mainly the Belcher, Sloth and Technopede. On Serve me pain these three can be quite annoying, but not the worst, belcher just has crazy high damage for an early enemy that shoots unpredictable bouncy grenades with a pretty big AOE along with already being decently tanky and a smaller hitbox. Sloth just pisses me off with how it'll do a stagger animation but it's stomach gun or whatever it is still fires at you, along with the missiles doing huge chunks of your health in a big AOE as well, also it has no leg/waist hitbox so you're gonna whiff a lot until you get used to it. The dumbass centipede on the other hand will do nothing until you turn your back and either tosses a volley of homing rockets at you, which aren't the hardest to lose, but are probably gonna trip you up if you're fighting something at a different angle than it. Then you've got the dumbass beam that tracks way too well for how much damage it does and how quick it comes out, haven't tested it but on Serve me pain I'm sure one beam would take you from full armor and health to 0 in like 4 damage ticks, with the beam itself only lasting around about two seconds. But these guys on Murder Machine ♥♥♥♥. One direct Belcher grenade? 200/200 straight to 0, they're priority one for me most of the time. Sloth's triple missile volley's the same story, caught in one of the three's AOE is still probably gonna be death, maybe you live at 20 hp if you were 200/200 before, but most of the time you're not just catching one of them anyways. The stupid ass worm ♥♥♥♥? Beam grazes your toe for a nanosecond and you evaporate, missile volley is also pretty much certain death if you take all of them, but if you're playing MM you're probably skilled enough to lose them without much of an issue. Everything else that's one shotting you on MM feels pretty fair though, I've definitely seen worse.
Rest of this mostly just gonna be me nitpicking random bs I wasn't a fan of, starting with the secret levels. Half of them feel the exact same, literally just find the stage complete switch, some have a timer, some make you do it chainsaws only, didn't really make it feel anymore than a half-baked main level. A lot of them have the problem enemies I listed above and dealing with getting one shot by them on top of whatever the level's annoying gimmick was instantly killed the will of me doing all of the secret levels on Murder Machine. Some of the unique ones were really fun though, I'll spoil some of the ones I really liked: Rocket jumping one was easy but neat, the Neon White rip off was really fun, the one that copied DOOM II's Barrel's o' Fun was pretty cheesable with the crazy movement you have, still fun though, really liked the don't fall one where you've gotta juggle grappling the whole stage while you kill a few hordes mid air, but I just love my whiplash tech so I'm biased, lastly all the survive for __ seconds were kinda fun, but nothing special. I think it's kinda nuts to have the same amount of secret levels as main levels? I'm not one to complain about more content, but when half of them are the same find the switch and survive _ waves they kinda loose their charm. The ones I listed were really fun though!
What else uhhh, the endless wave mode is alright, it holds up, is what I would say if there wasn't a game ruining bug that was just left in the game for years... For whatever reason one specific enemy has a chance to go completely immortal if you deal too much damage at once to it I think? Probably something to do with it's health going into the negatives if I had to guess? Luckily only happened to me after getting the endless achievements, ruined my wave 59 run though which sucked. Other than that I like how it incorporates the shops and doesn't start you off at 100% power off the bat, decent mode.
Now random misc. stuff that bugged me a little, Maw's arms are goofy as hell, half the time I couldn't take him seriously, which sucks cause Gianni did a great job voicing him. The gameplay animation is perfectly fine, but the cutscenes sometimes look a bit lackluster if I'm honest but that's never the biggest deal. Lastly I'd just like for some of the augments to be more globally useful, I feel like everyone ends the game with the exact same loadout unless you went full chainsaw mode instead. Awesome game overall and I can't wait for the eventual sequel! Though as much as it pains me to say it I can't recommend this game when instead you could save an extra 10 and buy up the steal that is ANTHRO HEAT!!! THANK YOU FOR BLESSING US GIANNI!!!
