Having loved the playable teaser of this in the first Dread X Collection, and having then immediately learned that this managed to get a full release, I was super excited to play this during the months it took for me to get around to it. And it didn’t disappoint! Virtually all the strengths in the 20-30 minute demo translate perfectly to the full release, and the game… almost manages to weather the longer playtime without feeling long in the tooth. The game captures the appearance of a 90s FMV game perfectly, meshing real actors in with pixelated graphics not unlike, say, Harvester or Phantasmagoria, and combat where you must swing your weapon in real-time, like… the first thing I think of is Virtual Hydlide but thankfully everything feels so much smoother here: possessing some fun quirks of movement befitting the time it’s emulating, such as having to use your keyboard to look up and down, while never falling into direct clunkiness. I love the spell system: how you have to click through menus to physically chant each spell, how each spell opens new paths both in front of you and littered throughout previous parts of the game almost like a Metroidvania, and how with brute force and some experimentation you can come across spells before the game officially teaches them to you. The game’s brand of comedy works to keep the line teetering between parody/reference and yet still being able to take itself seriously, and never feels like it gets old even as the game goes on. A big strength of this developer — having gone through all his Dread X offerings — is his ability to just create a vibe that's so unserious yet so unique in how they feel, and this game has that in spades.
There are a couple of things I wish were different, though: I think the final area pushes the game into “too long” territory, and the second area in particular I think is wayyyyyyyyy too large for its own good — too much space between landmarks means there’s a lottttttt of time spent walking around, especially when you’re backtracking/looking for specific things on the map. I also wish the “walk faster” spell was given to you earlier/didn’t cost health to perform: by the time I was capable of using it it was past the point where it would’ve been most appreciated, and it’s not particularly useful for the thin walkways/compressed rooms that the game throws at you after. Also wish spells were more useful in combat: they’re usable, but never quite viable, and it always felt like I could do more just swinging my sword as opposed to standing still and watching my character chant out a spell while the enemy is free to slice me up. Aside from those quibbles, though, I think this did a good job at expanding on yet still capturing what made the Dread X Hand of Doom work so well: it’s a rather engaging puzzle game with a fun, irreverent set dressing, weaponizing its influences in such a way that it looks and plays unlike anything else I’ve really seen. If there’s perhaps an edit pass that works a bit on the pacing, maybe adds some stuff, maybe gives you a couple of things earlier than it does (as well as fixing the bugs that… a lot of people who aren’t me seemed to get) I think there really can be something special here. 8/10.
There are a couple of things I wish were different, though: I think the final area pushes the game into “too long” territory, and the second area in particular I think is wayyyyyyyyy too large for its own good — too much space between landmarks means there’s a lottttttt of time spent walking around, especially when you’re backtracking/looking for specific things on the map. I also wish the “walk faster” spell was given to you earlier/didn’t cost health to perform: by the time I was capable of using it it was past the point where it would’ve been most appreciated, and it’s not particularly useful for the thin walkways/compressed rooms that the game throws at you after. Also wish spells were more useful in combat: they’re usable, but never quite viable, and it always felt like I could do more just swinging my sword as opposed to standing still and watching my character chant out a spell while the enemy is free to slice me up. Aside from those quibbles, though, I think this did a good job at expanding on yet still capturing what made the Dread X Hand of Doom work so well: it’s a rather engaging puzzle game with a fun, irreverent set dressing, weaponizing its influences in such a way that it looks and plays unlike anything else I’ve really seen. If there’s perhaps an edit pass that works a bit on the pacing, maybe adds some stuff, maybe gives you a couple of things earlier than it does (as well as fixing the bugs that… a lot of people who aren’t me seemed to get) I think there really can be something special here. 8/10.