An incredibly fun retro-styled shooter soaked in 90s American pop-culture. The level design is solid, and somehow manages to abstain from becoming labyrinthian, the bestiary is finely tuned to make every combat encounter interesting, the sprite-work makes great use of neon colors, and is overall striking, the soundtrack is crunchy and catchy as hell (I cannot stop listening to the final boss theme "Roadkilla"), its sense of humor is charming... I could go on.

Thinking about complaints, it really comes down to the fact that its missing some QOL touches that shooters have had for decades. For example, there's no weapon switch buffer coded in; weapon keys only work if Zane is finished firing his current weapon. I'm used to hitting the next weapon I want to use pre-emptively, so I had to get used to this. Key re-binding is also severely limited, and some actions are hard-coded. Though none of this was enough to ruin my experience.

All in all, I loved this game. That said, I can't help but feel it might not resonate with you if you weren't born in the late 80s, or early 90s. Maybe I'm wrong, though! For me, it really did feel like if that loud edgy kid from high school did eventually finish that game idea he kept pitching to you, and it's... honestly super charming. I can tell people are going to either love or hate this one. As for me? Slayers X stole my heart.