Rising Hell

Fun little action game. It doesn't have a deep story, it doesn't have complex mechanics, though I wouldn't quite call it mindless. Until you get to the first boss, you might think the game is too easy, but you'll change your mind quickly after that. About 20-30 attempts later, I completed the game. I wouldn't call the game brutal, though it doesn't hold your hand either. This game really is about the old school action platformer tropes of training your reflexes to recognize patterns in foes and in bosses until you become an expert at beating each one. If this is something that is appealing to you, you'll probably enjoy this, otherwise you'll want to move on to the next game. The game is not too long, I'd say somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 the length of a Megaman game. There are also 40 unlockables in the game (42 if you include the 2 extra unlockable playable characters, you start being able to play just one). You natually progress toward unlocking things with each successive playthough (it progresses a bit like an xp bar in rpgs). However, when I first beat the game, I had only unlocked the 12th unlockable and on my playthrough right after that, I got to the final boss (despite an increased 25% enemy damage as added difficulty after first beating the game). The game becomes easy after you've learned the patterns of the game's various foes and you probably won't have too much of an incentive to play much longer after that and thus probably won't unlock all the unlockables which is a shame as some of them look cool (judging from the names anyways). Don't expect a deep story out of this. The setting is kind of cool (being in Hell and all) and the tower ascension sets a kind of mood to the game (ie, I'm getting to the top of this thing and nobody is getting in my way... on my 20th+ attempt that is), but the fairly thin story is just an excuse to get into the thick of things. You won't get to KNOW your character. So, fun challenging game. Don't overthink it.

Really enjoying this game, just remember to turn automatic HELLBREAK off in the settings, makes alot of difference.

"Play though the story" my ass. It's the typical grind without any variation played one rouge lite played this one.