To me it's an excellent example of a game I could have played on Genesis, but with updated modern graphics and music. Professional metal soundtrack, and the pixel art is flat out incredible with a high level of detail and gorgeous rich colors. It's a shoot em up that's lenient by the standards of that genre, as you don't die in one hit, but still challenging. My first playthrough took over 8 hours, but subsequent ones are more in the area of 4 which makes it a great and full feeling game to play in one sitting. Your abilities are generous for the genre as well, as you have a melee attack which you can focus your play around if you wish. You can use it while moving, and it replenishes your 'mana' bar which is used for your heavy weapon and for your shield. The shield in particular is one of the modern sensibilities present in this retro style game, as it can be used for parrying melee and ranged attacks (catching projectiles and shooting them back), but you can be guard broken if trying to block with no 'mana.' There are very light RPG elements in the form of multiple weapons (light, heavy, and melee) which can be upgraded using "blood metal." Some are secret. The game feels noticeably different depending which weapons you use, making some areas and bosses easier or harder than others across playthroughs. It also features an innovative save system, where checkpoints are activated using collectible "resurrection idols," but this is optional. You may choose to risk replaying a longer section of the game in exchange for hoarding your idols, which can be traded at specific points for blood metals to get more upgrades. There's 8-10 levels which you move through seamlessly without transitions. It leans scifi but this is a fantasy world as well. The story is simple but builds an intriguing world which directly connects to the dev's previous game "Slain!" and sets up a sequel which I do believe is being made. It's epic, cool, and just feels good to play. Video games.
I was really looking forward to this, maybe too much. Maybe my disappointment was my fault, for reading the developer blogs and believing what they said. They deliberately misrepresented the final product. The blog dealing with motorics skills makes it sound like there would be stealth mechanics, and numerous guns to find and use. There's neither. The blog dealing with the game's overall length is a pack of lies. It details an underground zone which doesn't exist. It claims the shipping yard area is its own zone, but it's just a couple of screens. It claims 90 hours of content, when the average length of play is 30 hours, which is consistent with my experience as a lifelong reader. What's good about this game? I think it has great art, especially for the skills. The character portraits do at least half the work in characterizing all the NPCs. (Whether any of them are likeable is another question, but they are identifiable). The writing occasionally made me laugh. And I think the way the gameplay mechanics are entirely centered around dialogue is worth looking at, because it is a new approach for the genre. I honestly believe it's a 6/10 game, and worth a run through if you like CRPGs. That's the only praise I can give it. This game has no combat, which is unusual for CRPGs. The marketing line is, it's like Planescape: Torment without all the unnecessary combat. That would be of interest, were the combat replaced with anything worthwhile, but it's not. All of the front-loaded content, railroading, and binary choice and consequence, that is present in most CRPGs, is present here. The result? It has no game mechanics except for dialogue choices and skill checks. The reactivity applies only to inconsequential lines of dialogue. In terms of influencing the story in a meaningful way, it is WORSE than most all other games. I wish I could go into more detail here. Maybe I'll make a video one day, but does anyone give a damn? If you know, you know. Numenera is better.
