The game is mediocre. The combat is basic and doesn't feel very good, with bad sound assets attached to it which are annoying enough that I turned the sound off. The movement is slippery and imprecise and I noticed an input delay as well. The inflation fetish doesn't really add anything interesting mechanically and is actually tedious since if you eat too much you get an instant game over which I don't really understand the point of, it doesn't add a skill floor it's just boring to deal with. The music was forgettable. The only way I see someone enjoying this is if they are into the fetish. Oh right, let's talk about that. This is an R18, NSFW, Adult game. The art style is 100% in line with what I would expect from a furry inflation fetishist. The suggestive elements and sound assets are all there. This looks exactly like 100 other adult games. I even bought the art book to do my due diligence here and yeah, if the game itself isn't enough there is some obviously suggestive content there. The banner on GOG looks like the "SFW" edit of an image you would see on 621 or somewhere else. This isn't the same as something like Freedom Planet or Wonder boy or any other game with anthro characters. There are obvious sexual undertones here. But it doesn't have any explicit content. It's like there is a patch missing for this. Now as an adult with a huge library of eroge, I don't see the point of this because all the good stuff is missing and you are left with a bad game. And I really have to side eye the dev here because what with that being the case it looks like they are just trying to covertly push their kink on people. So the game is mediocre and I don't really trust the dev or their motivations here. Don't buy it. Not even on sale. Just go play an R18 game or find another platformer. Even if you are into the inflation stuff there's better stuff out there for you.
I was *so* excited for this game. Jank is really the wrong term to use for this game. It's what you call unpolished games that are a real gem in spite of their issues. Hired Gun is not jank, it's a poorly optimized, buggy, crash addict. Comparing this to Doom Eternal is insulting to Doom. In terms of design Streum On Studio have taken inspiration from Doom but they don't have the technical skill or resources to pull off what Doom did. This game isn't even a pale imitation, it's a broken, stitched together mess. I have a character limit, so I'm going to focus on combat, since that's being held up as this games best aspect. Combat is a mess. You have a host of movement options but they never do what you expect them to. The grappling hook doesn't always target what you aim at, sometimes snapping to a surface directly in front of you, sometimes to the side, sometimes it doesn't work. Wall running is sporadic and mostly pointless as many environments are too small or far too open for it to be of any use. The amount of visual pollution makes aiming pointless because you can't see anything to aim at it. Weapons feedback and performance varies wildly, the autogun I first picked up is better and more consistent than a plasma rifle that barely seems to hurt anything, despite having better stats. Most fights have a never-ending clown car of hit scanning enemies that spawn until an objective is met, this is good since you can only carry three health kits which you will rarely pick up, your health doesn't auto regenerate and the only other way to gain health is to damage enemies shortly after you take damage. Which you will. Pretty consistently. No amount of movement is going to save you from that. So why even bother? Stand still, shoot into crowd you can't see properly. You win. You can get shooters that do this for like $2.50 on Steam, you don't need to fork over $50 for the privilege. If you want Doom then go buy that instead. It works and is actually fun.
The combat is really uninvolved and simplistic and the controls hurt my soul in ways that a childhood of being beaten with jumper cables never could. Playing through it requires dedication and effort. It's not as fun as I want it to be.
The original Cossacks allowed you to play as any number of European or Middle Eastern nations with gargantuan armies across massive maps and had very quick game play that allowed you to wage massive wars in a short time span. The sequel is an altogether different beast however. Though the armies are still very large, the maps are not. The game plays much more slowly and methodically, Cannons require more thought and consideration to position and use, troops have moral and require careful management in order to make the most out of them. There is still a large variety of countries to play, though not as many as the original. So why play this game? Well though it's veered from the path of the original the game play is still very engaging and entertaining. The satisfaction of properly positioned cannons annihilating enemy forces is even more exciting than it was in the original. Crippling enemy armies with well timed rifle volleys is something that few other games properly convey. Watching the enemy army crumble and retreat after a combination of these two is the sweetest victory. The game delivers a sense of satisfaction that can only be had by watching your well laid plans come to fruition in the most violent ways the 18th century can deliver. The game lacks the same rapid and arcade pace of the original game, and the maps feel too small and limiting at times. The resource system has changed from the original as well. Rather than manage resources entirely yourself, you take over neutral villages which appear on the map. This essentially places all of the meat of the game on constructing an army and using it effectively, which wouldn't be so terrible were it not for the somewhat sporadic AI which will at times ignore your soldiers, allowing you to gun them down at your leisure. If you are looking for more of Cossacks, then this isn't for you. If you want a slower paced strategy game requiring careful positioning and management. You may like this a lot
