Ultrakill fans wish they were as funny and had as good comedic timing as this game.
The game's also pretty damn fun ig.
My only real issues are minor and come with age and some minor things that I know future games in the series do (such as being able to test out new moves/abilities before you buy them in a training area). The core combat is great and still incredibly satisfying to improve at with time. My only real issues with it are that some of the styles seem very much more useful then others. I didn't feel much need for trickster or royal guard, gunslinger was a sometimes food when I wanted to rank my style up, by the end of the game I would more or less alternate between swordsmaster and quicksilver, especially the former's max level autocombo attack is really good at getting instant SSS off the bat in an encounter. Then again I've heard some people also used Trickster and needed nothing else, so maybe I'm just the outlier here. Some of the later half's combat encounters also felt especially annoying and just not fun, particularly when the game gives you full rooms with nothing but those statue enemies. It wouldn't be an issue if they wern't total healthsponges but they just aren't fun to fight period. They feel more like a nuisance then a real challenge. I pretty much just kept beowulf equipped at all times once I got it to switch to whenever they got thrown at me during the later half.
I also kind of didn't like how, for me at least, grindy this game felt during the final third. Now part of this is my fault, since I didn't read the descriptions for items in the shop, assuming they were all one-time uses and not permanent upgrades, so I played through about half of the game just spending my red orbs on actions and upgrading my guns instead of putting them towards purple and blue orbs and inadvertedly making fights slightly harder for me. This game clearly incentivises replayability, which I don't mind and in a way I was fine with basically playing "catch-up" by replaying earlier missions to get my health and DT meter up to snuff, but for the last mission specifically it felt so damn hard to me and I just wanted the game to end that I basically just stockpiled stars and holy water just so I could speedrun Vergil, which meant even more replaying the first few levels. Again, maybe this is just a me thing but I just didn't like how dramatically hard the last half was and the grinding just made it feel like the game was overstaying it's welcome a bit.
Finally the story while not bad, has the same issue most other Capcom games during the era where the beats are there, but just not as well-executed as I believe they could be. Again, maybe this is just me being an outlier and more people would rather prefer something be mostly focused on gameplay and narrative (and I don't entirely disagree) but at the same time with this being a prequel to the first game it doesn't feel as fleshed out as it should be. Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I'd be curious to see what it'd be like if this game got a remake treatment akin to the modern Resident Evil games to see how they'd handle the story arcs. Again, it's not bad, the pieces are all there but they're just executed in a weird way that doesn't make me feel totally satisfied by the end.
Other then that I really had fun with this and am def excited to finally try the other games in the series at some point. Only other thing I'll say is that even though it's been said a thousand times over, if you want to play this game, PLAY THE SWITCH PORT. Yes, you can mod style switching on PC via the HD collection, but installing it didn't work for me for some reason, so I had to use a version of the mod made for the Ubisoft-published PC port back in 2006 which is AWFUL. Yes the mod worked but there's performance issues all over the place on top of many graphical issues in the cutscenes. No clue why Capcom just doesn't put the switch port on PC when it's just the best way to play it.
The game's also pretty damn fun ig.
My only real issues are minor and come with age and some minor things that I know future games in the series do (such as being able to test out new moves/abilities before you buy them in a training area). The core combat is great and still incredibly satisfying to improve at with time. My only real issues with it are that some of the styles seem very much more useful then others. I didn't feel much need for trickster or royal guard, gunslinger was a sometimes food when I wanted to rank my style up, by the end of the game I would more or less alternate between swordsmaster and quicksilver, especially the former's max level autocombo attack is really good at getting instant SSS off the bat in an encounter. Then again I've heard some people also used Trickster and needed nothing else, so maybe I'm just the outlier here. Some of the later half's combat encounters also felt especially annoying and just not fun, particularly when the game gives you full rooms with nothing but those statue enemies. It wouldn't be an issue if they wern't total healthsponges but they just aren't fun to fight period. They feel more like a nuisance then a real challenge. I pretty much just kept beowulf equipped at all times once I got it to switch to whenever they got thrown at me during the later half.
I also kind of didn't like how, for me at least, grindy this game felt during the final third. Now part of this is my fault, since I didn't read the descriptions for items in the shop, assuming they were all one-time uses and not permanent upgrades, so I played through about half of the game just spending my red orbs on actions and upgrading my guns instead of putting them towards purple and blue orbs and inadvertedly making fights slightly harder for me. This game clearly incentivises replayability, which I don't mind and in a way I was fine with basically playing "catch-up" by replaying earlier missions to get my health and DT meter up to snuff, but for the last mission specifically it felt so damn hard to me and I just wanted the game to end that I basically just stockpiled stars and holy water just so I could speedrun Vergil, which meant even more replaying the first few levels. Again, maybe this is just a me thing but I just didn't like how dramatically hard the last half was and the grinding just made it feel like the game was overstaying it's welcome a bit.
Finally the story while not bad, has the same issue most other Capcom games during the era where the beats are there, but just not as well-executed as I believe they could be. Again, maybe this is just me being an outlier and more people would rather prefer something be mostly focused on gameplay and narrative (and I don't entirely disagree) but at the same time with this being a prequel to the first game it doesn't feel as fleshed out as it should be. Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I'd be curious to see what it'd be like if this game got a remake treatment akin to the modern Resident Evil games to see how they'd handle the story arcs. Again, it's not bad, the pieces are all there but they're just executed in a weird way that doesn't make me feel totally satisfied by the end.
Other then that I really had fun with this and am def excited to finally try the other games in the series at some point. Only other thing I'll say is that even though it's been said a thousand times over, if you want to play this game, PLAY THE SWITCH PORT. Yes, you can mod style switching on PC via the HD collection, but installing it didn't work for me for some reason, so I had to use a version of the mod made for the Ubisoft-published PC port back in 2006 which is AWFUL. Yes the mod worked but there's performance issues all over the place on top of many graphical issues in the cutscenes. No clue why Capcom just doesn't put the switch port on PC when it's just the best way to play it.