An 8/10 game brought down significantly by frustrating encounter design. There are 40 levels in this game, each of which is a huge coin flip where one possible outcome is a treat, the player using their unlocks and abilities to make a mob of enemies look like fools. The other possible outcome is playing one of the most frustrating levels in recent memory - shotgun enemies showing up 5 at a time, any one of whom can one-shot you. Multiple un-stagger-able enemies whose only attack is a ground pound with an enormous hitbox that instantly ragdolls you. Multiple gun enemies pouring into an arena as a motorcycle tries to run you over, exploding if it hits a wall.

The hitboxes on enemy attacks in this game are truly massive, and it's incredibly frustrating when so many of them are one-shots, nearly one-shots, or have the ability to chain-stun you. The game is clearly designed purely as a power fantasy, but the ability of enemies to lock the player down ruins much of this fantasy as there's no satisfying way to counter the most annoying enemy habits. Perhaps more annoying than any attack is the enemies' tendency to constantly pick up things in the environment and throw them at you, resulting in near-constant slo-mo as you dodge roll around the map to avoid chairs, environmental hazards, bullets, one-shot command grabs, and ground pounds, none of which can be blocked or parried.

When this game works, it's fantastic - you feel like you're playing through a John Wick movie where they forgot to give him a gun, but if you try any of these fun cinematic takedowns at the wrong time, you'll likely die, since you take full damage and can be staggered out of any of these animations. It's bad enough that I actually went to go post on the Steam forums for the first time in a decade, and apparently I'm not the only one. The fact that you can go to the "playground" and customize your own encounters - and the fact that this instantly makes the game 40% better! - indicates that it's got decent production value but desperately needs an experienced level designer, someone who can figure out how to challenge the player without resorting to "dodge a lethal map effect every 2 seconds".

Reviewed on Sep 06, 2022


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