99 Levels to Hell

In short, that game has no atmosphere and is very, very boring. The music and sound effects are inappropriate and repetitive, graphics are confusing and require efforts from the player for him to undersand what is what, and the gameplay is very, very dull, basically consisting in "point and shoot" and a few cosmetic adds making it bear a very slight (but misleading) resemblance to things like Spelunky or The Binding of Isaac. It's nothing like either of those titles, however. Overall, it looks more like a beefed-up free Flash game than anything else, and that is a disappointment.

Simply put, it feels very unpolished. An action/platformer roguelike it may be, but it doesn't do the platforming or the roguelike well enough to be all that noteworthy. This is even disregarding the graphics, which are 'okay', but just don't really come together or have any stylistic appeal, although I will admit that is very subjective. Fun if you like this sort of thing, but I would spend my money on Binding of Isaac, Super Meat Boy, or as a charitable donation while I play Spelunky and 'real' roguelikes.

I gave this a solid try of about 6 hours. Top hats, metal, and bloody diablo-style action romp? How could I have resisted?!? There's some serious design flaws. The atmosphere and voicework emits a creepy, dark aura, but pressing jump makes a "mario" sound. My character, who could've been a monocled badass, hardly animates at all. In my entire 6 hours, I never got passed the first boss at level 10. Not that he's particularly hard, but the game is way too sparse with weapons and equipment. I found myself facing the boss with the range-limited starting shotgun or useless bubble gun too often. As well, there's some outright bugs in the level generation - sometimes you won't be able to reach your destination and will have to start over. And there's a mechanism whereby if you linger too long in a level, invincible killer ghosts show up. But the onscreen timer to tell you how much time you have doesn't actually work, so it feels kind of silly. As well, there's no manual or documentation, so I had no idea what any of the various powerups did. This has such potential, I'm really hoping there's a 2.0 or something coming.

Okay, let me see: Classy top hat? Check Monocle? Check Scandinavian heavy Metal? Check Underground casinos? Check "Hell mode"? Check Bossfight with a monster in a giant tractor? Check This game is like nothing you've ever tried before. It reeks with an old school heavy metal feeling but mixes it with the experience of classic platformers and arcade games. You are locked in Hell and the only way out is down and the travel will be pretty hardcore and with lots and lots of blood. There is no mercy for the player that makes mistakes, but still I find it hard to put down. You just got to try one more level! The rogue-like elements make the game different each time you play it. The levels are still the same, just switched around randomly from 1 to 99 and with different monsters and upgrades. I can recommend it to anyone that likes classic platformers, heavy metal and rouge-likes, and is looking for a unique experience.