2-hour refund deadline review.
- There's a serious disconnect between platforming and combat elements: jumping can't dodge most attacks and dodge-rolling is useless in platforming sections. The game immediately feels cluttered as a result, I have to constantly switch between 'platformer mode' and 'fighting mode' in my mind.
- Fighting multiple enemies at the same time is near impossible, but most of the areas are still densely packed with bad guys. There aren't many ranged attacks early on, so it's hard to put distance between you and any enemies. The camera doesn't help- at times it's hard to see what's to the right of your character, let alone behind you.
- Enemies deal too much damage. I'm usually dying before I even realize how much danger I'm in- there's a lot of attacks that kill you in one or two hits.
- Since the game is so punishing, it's hard to engage with the main mechanic- shells. There are good ideas here: Light shells are good at dodge-rolling while heavy shells are good at blocking attacks. Blocking is a little bit easier than dodging, but shells break if you block with them too often, so you'll need to regularly change shells if you prefer blocking to dodging. The problem is that I never consciously thought about these mechanics while playing the game because the difficulty curve always felt several steps ahead of me: what does it matter if I dodge or block an attack if failing either instantly kills me?
- I got stuck on random level geometry once and had to restart the game.
- Everything besides the gameplay is pretty good. The character designs are decent, I like the variety of shell designs, even within the small part of the game I actually played. Moving around the game's environments is pretty fun.

This game send me on some kind of a emotional rollercoaster.

There is so much about it, i want to like. The presentation which is really refreshing for a souls-like, the charming humor and many easter-eggs/references and how it even manages to tackle some social and individual problems. The main gimmick about swapping trough different shells with different abilities is neat but kinda falls flat in the long run.
But in contrast to all this good things there were many technical issues i encounteres like weird hit collision, lock-on not working or getting blasted out of or clipping trough boss arenas. And at least in my version (Xbox Series X) i encountered sudden loading zones which made the game freeze for a couple of secs. With a bit more polishing it can be a got starter into the souls-like genre with many difficulty adjustment options.

Gave up on the Golden Capital Act 2 boss fight, so really I only had like 5 levels left after that. But, I was not having a good time even from the beginning. I think the looks sold me on this game, and that's all there was to it. Just the looks. The controls weren't horrible, but it was a matter of how fun it was to play. It wasn't. I know the levels did have some branching paths, but even then it still managed to feel oddly linear for a 2D Sonic game. That and some levels lasted way longer than they needed to. Every act 1 had an extra boss, so there was a boss each level and all of those were just as bad. Especially the Golden Capitol one I gave up on that was a 5 minute autoscroller that reset to the beginning if you died. So just a mix of shit levels, shit bosses, not much feeling of accomplishment after everything lasts way longer than it should, and another problem I haven't seen many people mention, the camera being a bit too close to the screen. Idk, I think I'm just even more disappointed after expecting a 2D Sonic game to be decent. Like even my least favorites (SA2 (sorry), CD (also sorry), and Shuffle) have more redeeming factors than this. It just felt like they knew Mario Wonder was in the works before it got announced and were like "hey we can make that too". Didn't work out too well imo.

Pure unadulterated 6th gen zoomer filter

Wait, this was released just this year? How could this be?

In all seriousness though, I’m never trusting a journalist’s review ever again. I had interest in Wanted: Dead until I saw IGN’s 4/10 review calling it a bad game. I know not to trust these publications positive reviews, but usually when reviews are this low, there’s something very wrong. That’s not the case with Wanted: Dead.

Wanted: Dead is not only good, but it’s great; A beautiful seamless blend of cover shooting and hack n slash. The shooting is responsive and features great feedback. The melee combat is simple, yet engaging and challenging. Mixing these together could result in a mess, but the enemy variety, balancing and health system makes it harmonious.

Staying in cover blasting away results in running out of ammo and health. Much like Doom (2016) and Eternal, running away and hiding will get you killed. You heal from preforming the melee takedown animations and regular melee attacks. You can still use the cover shooting mechanics in an attempt to take out enemies at long range or thin out the horde, but the melee combat is what allows the player to regain health and build adrenalin. Adrenalin is basically your devil trigger or god hand, activating it shoots nearby enemies with your handgun leaving them open for a “glory kill”.

As for the melee combat itself, the only comparison I can make is Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Parry enemies’ basic strings and then use the handgun counter on the moves that flash red. It’s simple and it could have used a few more types of enemies. At least there are bosses that have unique strings and abilities.

My biggest complaint with Wanted: Dead is that it doesn’t evolve much. The game doesn’t change much past the first level. Sure, there’s new enemies and a skill tree that unlocks new moves, but the lack of any real level design, platforming, or puzzles makes it more paced like a beat ‘em up than a traditional 6th gen character action game like Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden. Still, I didn’t find myself getting bored. It throws waves and waves of enemies at you with new combinations.

The checkpoints are stretched really far apart. It can be frustrating (especially a certain one of level 4) but overall I think it ties in well with the design they were going for. Wanted: Dead also has some jank but who cares? I don’t know why people get so upset about this. I glitched out of bounds twice, some of the animations froze during the glory kills, the chainsaw can miss right through enemies, a few times I couldn’t pickup a med kit, but if you’re gonna let that get in your way you’re not playing video games for the right reasons.

Wanted: Dead’s world is bursting with personality. There’s multiple goofy mini games and strange yet compelling voice acting.
Lieutenant Stone’s VA specifically is strange. Theres a few lines delivered poorly, but her unique tone makes it memorable. With all the extra side content I barely touched, I’m surprised how short the game was. It’s set up like a much longer game, complete with an HQ area and challenge arena, but it only lasted 7 hours for me. The story starts as a confusing mess without any structure, but eventually in the penultimate level, the twists and turns make sense of most of it without spelling it all out.

The devs of Wanted: Dead proclaimed it to be a “love letter to the 6th generation of games” and that’s absolutely what it is, warts and all. I cannot fathom someone playing this game and legitimately thinking it’s “bad”. It’s straightforward challenging fun. Get filtered.

8/10