A pretty damm cool Metroidvania. I like basicly everything about it from the art style to the progression. I only wish your directions was a little bit clearer. There was a paticular boss fight I had to repeat about 3 times because the game didnt make it clear how to progress right after it, leading me to die mutiple times until I got back to a save point.
i think i felt more positive about this from the outset that i ended up doing in hindsight. the visual style is obviously the highlight here - and it is good, especially in particular areas. there is something nice about wandering through weird cartoony labyrinths in a Metroid format but still obviously in first person in the Doom engine. and it does feel like something that had a lot of heart put into it. even if it’s pretty short, it’s solidly executed. and there were areas that felt distinct, with some new surprises or interesting traits.
there are really times where felt like it could use more work or it just didn’t feel that refined - some areas were a bit empty, there were a few times where it felt buggy or overly grindy or there were random death traps for no reason, and a lot of the bosses were just “circle strafe and hold down fire to win” - in general there’s not exactly deep inspiring combat. it’s definitely a game that just runs in the Doom engine - you even get the Doom percentage stat screen at the end of the game. the plot is a bit like a Dark Souls fanfiction and feels amateurish at times.
my big complaint is the design feels a bit boilerplate outside of the cool visuals - very workmanlike, which is fine! in that way it made me think a little of older indie game designers like Locomalito or Daniel Remar who sort of have a retro sensibility aren’t exactly doing anything revolutionary in terms of design features in their games or whatever (Locomalito literally advertises his work as “traditional video games” which is... lol), but their games still have a distinctive mark. tho it is less refined design-wise than the output of those designers. but still it’s obviously coming from a developer with limited resources and time - and that is part of the charm. it reminds me of a lot of 00's games in that way.
but if you're expecting something more weird or off the beaten path due to the visuals, you're not really going to get that here. i wouldn't exactly call it an essential play for that reason, even if there were individual parts i liked.
there are really times where felt like it could use more work or it just didn’t feel that refined - some areas were a bit empty, there were a few times where it felt buggy or overly grindy or there were random death traps for no reason, and a lot of the bosses were just “circle strafe and hold down fire to win” - in general there’s not exactly deep inspiring combat. it’s definitely a game that just runs in the Doom engine - you even get the Doom percentage stat screen at the end of the game. the plot is a bit like a Dark Souls fanfiction and feels amateurish at times.
my big complaint is the design feels a bit boilerplate outside of the cool visuals - very workmanlike, which is fine! in that way it made me think a little of older indie game designers like Locomalito or Daniel Remar who sort of have a retro sensibility aren’t exactly doing anything revolutionary in terms of design features in their games or whatever (Locomalito literally advertises his work as “traditional video games” which is... lol), but their games still have a distinctive mark. tho it is less refined design-wise than the output of those designers. but still it’s obviously coming from a developer with limited resources and time - and that is part of the charm. it reminds me of a lot of 00's games in that way.
but if you're expecting something more weird or off the beaten path due to the visuals, you're not really going to get that here. i wouldn't exactly call it an essential play for that reason, even if there were individual parts i liked.
This review contains spoilers
I would've really liked it if it wasn't for some huge issues. Let's go over them.
1. The game's checkpoints are not great. I had to refight the Ornstein and Smogh ripoff boss fight three times since I died almost insantly after defeating them because at that point any water will drain your health at a ridiculous rate and you die within seconds. The devs could have made the game autosave after beating a boss or even do a Dark Souls 3 and put a checkpoint in the boss arena but nope. The checkpoint system itself is kinda stupid too: so like in Dark Souls, checkpoints fully heal you and restore all your healing items but unlike Dark Souls using checkpoints comes at no cost which is to say enemies don't get revived. That means there's no reason not to walk back to the last checkpoint after every encounter which robs the game of a lof of challenge which it could've used.
2. The bosses kinda suck. The previously mentioned Ornstein and Smough boss is the best one in the game as its structure makes it so you can't just circle strafe around them like for most other bosses. The other exception to this rule is the final boss which is by far the worst one in the game. He has this really fun machine gun move where for like legit 30 seconds he'll non stop fire homing projectiles. The only strat to avoid damage here is to hide behind one of the pillars in the boss arena. All his other moves are super unnoteworthy except for one move where he'll suddenly throw a barage of fire balls at you. This move has next to no wind-up and can deal ridiculous damage, I remember dying to it with more than four full health bars. The other bosses are fine overall and some are even good but yeah for pretty much all of them if you just keep strafing around them they can't do shit.
3. The metro area. This one fucking area made me dislike the entire game so much more. And it was so close to being good too - the atmosphere is amazing. It's the darkest area in the game and the only one where the map doesn't show you anything. Combine that with some real spooky enemy designs and you got some real strong vibes, ruined by the game's lighting. So like some other games like Hollow Knight at one point you can get a little lantern as a light source. The problem is that lantern doesn't at all follow the player - it is its own entity that tries to follow the player but it really struggles doing so. Its path finding is really not great so it'll constantly get stuck around corners and stuff leaving you in complete darkness. The light it casts is also just not very strong which defo enhances said atmosphere but my god does it make traversing this area tedious. You can take like five steps before you gotta wait for your little light source buddy to catch up which a lot of the time it fails to do, I really don't get how they tested this shit out and didn't think to change it for the final game. Oh yeah and about the strong atmosphere? Ruined by meme drawings on the wall. The dev let people on Twitter submit random artwork to plaster on the walls of this area, the idea being it's supposed to be like grafitti. It is kinda cool just for the novelty of it but also because it like tells you something about the world, like that there used to be people in the past who drew random shit on the walls and that's cool but like, being in this spooky ass area and suddenly seeing popular yugioh meme Ojama Lime on the wall instantly broke any sense of tension. I really would've preferred these grafitti things to be included in any other area instead.
I really wish I could've enjoyed this thing more and at times I really got into it, like it's made in the Doom engine so already it's a lot of fun play and the level design can be really strong and it has a good sense of exploration as you'd hope for a game like this to have but yeah, it sadly has too many issues for me to really be able to recommend it.
1. The game's checkpoints are not great. I had to refight the Ornstein and Smogh ripoff boss fight three times since I died almost insantly after defeating them because at that point any water will drain your health at a ridiculous rate and you die within seconds. The devs could have made the game autosave after beating a boss or even do a Dark Souls 3 and put a checkpoint in the boss arena but nope. The checkpoint system itself is kinda stupid too: so like in Dark Souls, checkpoints fully heal you and restore all your healing items but unlike Dark Souls using checkpoints comes at no cost which is to say enemies don't get revived. That means there's no reason not to walk back to the last checkpoint after every encounter which robs the game of a lof of challenge which it could've used.
2. The bosses kinda suck. The previously mentioned Ornstein and Smough boss is the best one in the game as its structure makes it so you can't just circle strafe around them like for most other bosses. The other exception to this rule is the final boss which is by far the worst one in the game. He has this really fun machine gun move where for like legit 30 seconds he'll non stop fire homing projectiles. The only strat to avoid damage here is to hide behind one of the pillars in the boss arena. All his other moves are super unnoteworthy except for one move where he'll suddenly throw a barage of fire balls at you. This move has next to no wind-up and can deal ridiculous damage, I remember dying to it with more than four full health bars. The other bosses are fine overall and some are even good but yeah for pretty much all of them if you just keep strafing around them they can't do shit.
3. The metro area. This one fucking area made me dislike the entire game so much more. And it was so close to being good too - the atmosphere is amazing. It's the darkest area in the game and the only one where the map doesn't show you anything. Combine that with some real spooky enemy designs and you got some real strong vibes, ruined by the game's lighting. So like some other games like Hollow Knight at one point you can get a little lantern as a light source. The problem is that lantern doesn't at all follow the player - it is its own entity that tries to follow the player but it really struggles doing so. Its path finding is really not great so it'll constantly get stuck around corners and stuff leaving you in complete darkness. The light it casts is also just not very strong which defo enhances said atmosphere but my god does it make traversing this area tedious. You can take like five steps before you gotta wait for your little light source buddy to catch up which a lot of the time it fails to do, I really don't get how they tested this shit out and didn't think to change it for the final game. Oh yeah and about the strong atmosphere? Ruined by meme drawings on the wall. The dev let people on Twitter submit random artwork to plaster on the walls of this area, the idea being it's supposed to be like grafitti. It is kinda cool just for the novelty of it but also because it like tells you something about the world, like that there used to be people in the past who drew random shit on the walls and that's cool but like, being in this spooky ass area and suddenly seeing popular yugioh meme Ojama Lime on the wall instantly broke any sense of tension. I really would've preferred these grafitti things to be included in any other area instead.
I really wish I could've enjoyed this thing more and at times I really got into it, like it's made in the Doom engine so already it's a lot of fun play and the level design can be really strong and it has a good sense of exploration as you'd hope for a game like this to have but yeah, it sadly has too many issues for me to really be able to recommend it.
Very short, yet memorable. As is the bulk of Scumhead's output. My only real complaint is of weapon variety feeling somewhat poor. Overall I'm glad I picked this one up.
an aggressively weird doom wad that's a metroidvania kind of?? i liked it but wanted more
One of my favourite metroidvanias of recent years. I just wish there was more of it. It does things with the Doom Engine that would have set your computer on fire back in the day.
A really nice Metroidvania done in the gzdoom engine, it sure has is limitations but it's fun and I really like the art style, unique and unsettling.
Only the bosses are not that good but the exploration and combat is pretty good.
Only the bosses are not that good but the exploration and combat is pretty good.
I love the artstyle, and the game is pretty good, but the plot was laughably bad.
Ojama Lime appears as a graffiti in the subway. That's pretty cool.
Ojama Lime appears as a graffiti in the subway. That's pretty cool.
I love the Scumhead vibe. That Beksiński painting has been my desktop background for like a decade.
the only thing you'll be throwing up is your arms in delight as you experience this astonishing, colorful world brought to you by scumhead
A GZDoom FPS Metroidvania set in a dying, infected fantasy world. I loved this game, exploring it is great fun and it has a really cool sense of aesthetics and worldbuilding. I don't think the combat is super amazing, but it's not the focus.
A natural evolution of the gameplay and aesthetic found in Shrine and Shrine II. Take the vibe from those games, add a heavy Metroidvania aspect to it, and you've got Vomitoreum. My quick and dirty suggestion is to try both Shrine games (or at least Shrine II), as they're both free, and if you dig the vibe, pick up Vomitoreum to show some love to the developer. I really appreciated the different types of gameplay and exploration options drip fed throughout. Nice variety of weapons, though some enemies felt a little on the tanky side for sure (less so than a few Shrine enemies, for what it's worth). But it's clear that the dev took a lot of learnings from the Shrine games and built something really cool out of it. Worth the cost of admission if you're into boomer shooters, especially those with Metroidvania leanings. If I had to guess, it took me 3-4 hours to play through in its entirety.
Just imagine if Scorn was an actually good game
It was a okay. everything feels pretty underdeveloped and underwhelming, but i liked what they were going for. i liked the art. the bosses were terrible though, with Umadermadine being the worst one. like, you can't just have a boss who's attack is a 30 seconds long stream of projectiles and expect it to be anything fun. so, yeah. Also, i feel like every Scumhead game i played yet (Lycanthorne I and II, Shrine) has this recurring theme of annoyingly hard and not fun late game bosses. just a thought
I really enjoyed this game! It got its hooks into me and I couldn't pull myself away until I'd finished it. The game delivers a very satisfying metroidvania experience: the atmosphere is nasty and compelling, movement feels really good, the navigation of the interconnected world is just about perfect, the pace is great, secrets are fun to find. Judging it specifically as a metroidvania, I think it's great. I love exploring the world, finding shortcuts and doubling back with new abilities to find hidden items.
I only have minor critiques, and those would just add up to a close to perfect gaming experience. The weapons aren't super well balanced, so the shotgun pretty much sucks compared to the pistol/machine gun. Many of the bosses just come down to circle strafe and hold down the trigger. There is one boss that requires you to use the dash to dodge one of his attacks, and that feels really good. Most of the bosses' attacks can be pretty easily avoid just by strafing. I'd love to see more bosses require you to watch for telegraphs, dodge or jump to avoid taking damage. A couple of the bosses are pretty good, but most are pretty dull. Also the map is very rudimentary and not usually very helpful. You can't look around the map, and it's hard to see the little white blip that represents where you are.
Enemies don't respawn ever, which at first I didn't like, but the experience of traversing empty areas where you've already slaughtered every monster is its own kind of unsettling. I think, however, it would be better if as you get close to late game new, stronger enemies start showing up in old areas. You'd still get those empty moments, but it would make late game item hunting more fun.
It deals with some heavy subject matter in a way that feels more edgy than profound, but ultimately it's all in service of a solid story that is all of a piece with the disturbing aesthetic.
I thought it was good! Glad I picked it up.
I only have minor critiques, and those would just add up to a close to perfect gaming experience. The weapons aren't super well balanced, so the shotgun pretty much sucks compared to the pistol/machine gun. Many of the bosses just come down to circle strafe and hold down the trigger. There is one boss that requires you to use the dash to dodge one of his attacks, and that feels really good. Most of the bosses' attacks can be pretty easily avoid just by strafing. I'd love to see more bosses require you to watch for telegraphs, dodge or jump to avoid taking damage. A couple of the bosses are pretty good, but most are pretty dull. Also the map is very rudimentary and not usually very helpful. You can't look around the map, and it's hard to see the little white blip that represents where you are.
Enemies don't respawn ever, which at first I didn't like, but the experience of traversing empty areas where you've already slaughtered every monster is its own kind of unsettling. I think, however, it would be better if as you get close to late game new, stronger enemies start showing up in old areas. You'd still get those empty moments, but it would make late game item hunting more fun.
It deals with some heavy subject matter in a way that feels more edgy than profound, but ultimately it's all in service of a solid story that is all of a piece with the disturbing aesthetic.
I thought it was good! Glad I picked it up.
Pretty good game, the story is kinda complicated, and its kinda dull looking at times but other times it looks really Cool. Such a surreal landscape that I backed. Also my arts in the game. In the subway there’s graffiti its says “No hope dead men praying”
Looks pretty neato but that metro area had me pulling my hair out and now i am 👨🦲