First of all: I like the setting, I really like, what the game did in regards to atmosphere, and I love the art style. But: The game is too frustrating. You often die without knowing what killed you. You have a ton of items, but don't know, what half of them do. You also have no way of finding out, since the game doesn't tell you anything. When you inevitably die, you lose about an hour of progress each time, since there is no free saving. The developer says, that this game is a rogue-like, but for that it has too many story elements, too many repeating content, and you will eventually get sick of seeing it for the fifth time, after dying once again because of sheer bad luck. I want to like this game, but it does not let me.
I had a lot of fun playing the first levels. Shooting and movement feels good, the weapons have a good sound and feel "physical". Weapon behaviour is a bit same-y, the only difference between the weapons seems to be power and reload time, except for the wand (which lets you kill several enemies in a row) or the dynamite (which has an area-of-effect and can easily kill hard enemies). I like the kind of secrets that I have encountered so far, where you have to keep an eye out for irregularities. You are rewarded for being perceptive instead of being forced to try to press the use key on every damn wall, like in other games. Then came the first boss... At first I thought, that I was doing something wrong, but it seems that there is no special trick. You just have to shoot its HP down, while dodging and killing random spawning mooks. The boss's attacks seem irregular and random, with no apparent pattern which attack is fired when. The last phase of the boss is just a floating torso, which hunts you down with melee attacks, with no possibility to dodge or avoid them. If you don't have enough HP or damage to quickly rid of the boss, you are toast. And then your lives are used up. No continues. No save game. You have to start from the beginning. The game was fun, but not that much fun, that I would play the same thing over and over again, just to be stuck with the boss once more. I am also questioning the decision to include lives as a mechanic at all. I didn't lose a life until the boss. The game was fun, not awfully challenging. Then I played the boss for the first time and was instantly killed by its first attack. All the games that were the inspiration for Project Warlock don't have lives, but Save/Load mechanics instead. Lives would maybe make sense in a kind of Rogue-Lite gameplay, but this is not this kind of game. You lose all your weapons and progress, so there is no point. I'd like to love this game, but it doesn't let me.
