Completely at a loss for what I could possibly add to the (well-deserved) legacy of this game. Perfectly pitched aesthetically, thematically, mechanically. Everyone on the planet already knows this, which is why everyone has tried their hand at making their version. It's a testament to this game how original and striking many of those games are while taking cues from the level design and presentation and storytelling and everything else. The blueprint here is clear, rich and running so much deeper than any one game (even this one) could hope to dry out.

So I'll just talk about one thing. Everyone and their mother knows about the secret ending and the dickhead purple pixel collectables and the 'true' narrative of Hotline Miami by this point. If you don't I won't spoil it for you, it's some decent socio-political commentary, but more a setup for a follow-up (looking forward to playing that soon!) than any majorly satisfying narrative conclusion. Most people don't see that ending. Most people see an ending that I've seen described as a fake out. Stand-ins for the developers mock your feeble attempts to make sense of the surrealistic storytelling, telling you the glorious violence you've indulged in for the entire run time is exactly as meaningless as you thought it was. This is perfect. So perfect that I consider it definitive. Hotline Miami constantly forces you to entangle with the nature of graphic violence in art. You spend the entire game wondering about your own motivations. To what end am I killing these people? Why am I listening to these phone calls? Sure, it's fun, but who are the people behind this and what are they trying to get out of me (in both the textual and meta sense)? Finally, they strand you with the only real answer. You did what you were told because you were told. They were bored. It was fun. And it is. Really fun. Perfect perfect ending to one of the great games of the 2010s.