HIGH Solid, classic-style 2D graphics and catchy tunes.

LOW Brutal difficulty even higher than the original.

WTF The first game I’ve seen where the score resets after losing a life…

Difficulty is a topic that has dominated the discourse over the last few months. However, let’s all agree on a simple point — finding the right balance between challenge and enjoyment isn’t easy at all. Some developers can spend years tinkering with a formula before release, but in the case of Ganryu 2, I think this one needed more time in the lab.

As readers have surely noticed, the “2” in the title indicates that this is a sequel. The original is a little-known (and not very special) 1999 Neo-Geo side-scrolling hack-and-slash which featured two playable characters. Apparently, Storybird Studio thought it was the perfect IP to bring back to life and develop a sequel to.

Narratively, there’s not much to pay attention to — Miyamoto Musashi, the protagonist of the original, gets called back to Japan to fight against evil. No second playable character here.

The press release mentions both Shinobi 3 and Shadow Dancer as inspirations for Ganryu 2. Indeed, the idea is clearly there in the way Musashi roams the Japanese countryside dispatching enemies left and right. Yes, this is a classic 2D side-scrolling hack-and-slash with a few alt weapons, wall-jumping and such, but essentially players run and jump around, dispose of enemies, reach the boss at the end of the level, and progress. There’s nothing more to it than that, but there doesn’t need to be.

Still, mentioning a huge classic like Shinobi III as a point of comparison reveals right away the problem with Storybird’s attempt — there is no flow nor rhythm to the gameplay here. Where Sega’s work felt like a magical dance in the way their ninja progressed through each level with beautiful 2D graphics and an exquisite Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack, none of that same energy is here.

The jumps feel floaty and imprecise, the rhythm is constantly interrupted by enemies spawning everywhere, and above all, the difficulty feels cheap.

Ganryu 2 wants the player to memorize every little obstacle by trial and error in an oldschool way, which would be fine if the player wasn’t punished for death by resetting the score, losing all power-ups and being set back quite a way. While Musashi has a health meter, a hit often sends him flying back (good old ‘Nintendo Hard’ trope design) into an abyss.

Worse, there are no difficulty settings (nor any settings at all, except for volume) which is a bewildering sight for a retro-themed 2022 release. Players dealt with this kind of difficulty because we had to back in the 8- and 16-bit days, but design and player concessions have come a long way since then. Seeing the words ‘game over’ with all of the penalties that come with it in Ganryu 2 will not be a welcome sight.

Technically, Ganryu 2 stutters a lot on the Switch, especially in Stage 2. This is is indeed a problem when the action requires one to be extremely careful. Apparently things got worse after the first patch and the team is working on another, but still.

Apart the stuttering, the otherwise-pleasing graphics get in the way of the action. Some visual elements are foregrounded and obscure the enemies which tend to randomly spawn whenever one goes exploring about, sometimes even right on top of the player’s sprite. These aspects of the difficulty in Ganryu 2 simply do not feel fair since skill won’t help.

Retro players starved for a Shinobi-like title who also relish mastery through repetition will surely see this as the perfect opportunity — just be sure to get anything other than the Switch version. For everyone else, Ganryu 2‘s try-and-die learning curve is repulsive, and the trial-and-error design harshly punishes the player for every little mistake. It’s one of those rare titles that I do not wish to go back to.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Storybird Studio and published by Pixelheart. It is currently available on Switch and PS. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on Switch. Approximately 4 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: The game is rated E10+ by the ESRB for Fantasy Violence. Overall, there’s not much in the way of violence and there is no blood, but considering the brutal difficulty of the game I would probably recommend this to a teen audience.

Colorblind Modes: there are no colorblind modes and also, the graphics make identifying the enemies quite more difficult than it should be.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game does not feature spoken dialogue, nor are audio cues used to communicate enemies’ attacks. Text cannot be altered or resized. In my view, the game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: The game is controlled by moving the character around with the D-pad, using B to jump, A to slash and Y to throw kunai daggers (see included scheme). It is not possible to remap the controls.

The post Ganryu 2 Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH A classic-looking 8-bit beat-’em-up.

LOW It’s very, very difficult.

WTF Why do dropped items disappear after only five seconds??

It’s not often that a new title releases on an NES cartridge alongside current-gen consoles in the year 2021. It’s also not often that I encounter a difficult game whose hardships I simply cannot condition myself to conquer. 

Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl ticks both of these boxes. 

To be clear, that’s not to say there’s nothing to like here. The 8-bit graphics are cute and the titular duo are accurately represented by their respective sprites, barring the difference in height between the two (Kevin Smith as the shorter Silent Bob, and Jason Mewes as Jay).  

These two originally appeared on the big screen in 1994’s Clerks. They went on to frequent roles in subsequent “View Askewniverse” films such as 1997’s Chasing Amy, 1999’s Dogma, and more. The pair are known for their marijuana-infused humor, harsh social commentary and politically-incorrect comments, which has turned them — and especially creator Kevin Smith — into popular characters over the years. 

While we usually find these two selling drugs in front of a shop or a market, this game takes place inside of a shopping mall. This building is full of society’s outcasts, petty delinquents, and of course, security guards – all of which enter melee on sight. Needless to say, there are numerous callbacks to the Askewniverse, like the mini-mart where Jay and Bob usually hang and many enemies that resemble characters from the movies. 

The combat is simple and serviceable. On their end, Jay and Silent Bob can utilize kicks and punches – Jay has a cool leg combo, ending with a mid-air ‘propeller’ motion, and Bob gets punches that evolve into a whirlwind-like move, in addition to things like jumping or running attacks. It’s quite satisfying when more than one baddie is caught in a flurry, but don’t expect to dominate – these enemies practically cheat! 

I believe the shortcomings here are rooted in the limitations of the NES console that J&SB is adhering to. One of the first things that leaps into focus is the extremely small number of characters present on screen at once — usually, only two foes at a time. However, each and every one of them is a tough cookie. 

The enemies follow the now-long-outdated trick of reading every input the player makes, as it were intended for them. In-game, this translates to enemies reacting at the same exact time to any movement made by Jay or Bob — if the player aims to create breathing room by moving upwards, one enemy will close all escape routes from that point, while other will hone in on the player’s position. Because of this, foes will prophetically close off all angles around the characters, putting them in the middle of a pincer formation fast.  

On top of that, many enemies spawn with a weapon in hand, allowing them a longer reach and a few easy hits. Those weapons can be wrestled out of their possession, but will soon break once in player hands. 

The most annoying enemies were the skateboarding goons. They move fast, kick hard, and are vulnerable only from above. Yet, landing such a precise blow merely pushes them off their board and they regain their position in the very next second while Jay and Bob need a longer period of time to recover from the air kick that knocked them off! When fighting two skaters at once, players can expect to receive many, many cheap shots.            

Despite being frequently infuriated, I probably would’ve pressed on and rolled credits had I found a single element that captured my attention. Unfortunately, Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl is a serviceable beat-’em-up at best, and any real enjoyment will come solely from nostalgia and callbacks for fans of the IP.

— Konstantin Koteski

Disclosures: This game is developed by Interabang Entertainment and published by The Media Indie Exchange. It is currently available on XBO, PS4, PC, NES and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4 Pro. Approximately 2.5 hours were devoted to the story, and the game was not completed. 30 minutes were spent in couch co-op, which is “drop-in, drop-out”. Online co-op is not supported.

Parents: This game has received an T rating by the ESRB, and contains Crude Humor and Fantasy Violence. The game is heavily inspired by NES classics like Double Dragon and River City Rampage. It features cutely drawn 8-bit characters able to jump, kick and punch, with many hand weapons available for limited usage. Enemies can be driven to a “hazed” state, and then grabbed for a few knee-to-the-head kicks, which is the most violent move I’ve seen in the game. Defeated foes disappear quite quickly, and no blood is visible.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There is no speech in this game, and the size of the text is not changeable, but clear enough. Sound is completely unimportant for playing this game. This is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: This game does not offer a controller diagram, but the control scheme is remappable. The base layout is that movement is on the left analog stick or the directional buttons, while the face buttons can be assigned for jumping, punching or kicking.

The post Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl Arcade Edition Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

Out of Line initially caught my eye with its beautiful hand-drawn graphics. What was the inspiration behind that art style?

Thanks for the compliment! The art style takes inspiration from a lot of different media, all the way from movies, short animated films, to modern painting movements.  And it is in the impressionist movement of the XX century that the game found the main inspiration for its style. Going for a similar painting esthetic, embracing the brush strokes and the colours found in a lot of impressionist and expressionist paintings, but bringing it to the gaming media.

Can you tell us a little bit about the process of creating the game’s art style? How does it differ from other games you’ve worked on in the past?

After looking and gathering a lot of different references, we immediately started making a lot of mockups and paintings to find a good balance between art style and gameplay. Because it was very important to us to make the player fully understand the gameplay and paths that he could take in the game, and not get lost in the screen and in the art style.

The main difference between this art style and the others done in the past, I think, is the complexity of colours and layers that are presented in the final game. Despite being a more “fluid” style, it needs a lot more attention and iterations of the assets while assembling them in the final level. Nevertheless, it is a very fun process between the level design and the art style to find the perfect balance between both.

Out of Line has a very different feel from Nerd Monkey’s previous projects. What inspired the more somber and mysterious ambience?

Out of Line started out as a project from me specifically, so it has more of my personal style reflected in it. Only later did Nerd Monkeys welcome the project to help the talented team finish their project. Still, why would we go for something so different from our previous games? The answer lies in our curious nature. First of all, we fell in love with the project. Each of our original IPs have the distinct signature of their creator. Also, by working on client projects as well, we broadened our adaptability and skills to work on different things. There’s beauty in diversity and we want to reflect the variety that the gaming world has to offer.

2D puzzle-platformers are somewhat oversaturated in the past few years. What makes Out of Line stand out from the pack?

Out of Line embraces the classical feel of a 2D puzzle-platformer that players know and love, but it gives it a new look and feel with a unique art style and environment, a unique gameplay mechanic surrounding the character’s magical spear that he must use as a tool to navigate its surroundings, and it’s all wrapped in a challenging story full of meaning and interpretation.

San is an adorable hero, but he seems to have quite a few identical twins in the factory; some of which seem to be malfunctioning. Can you tell us anything about his background? Or is that up to the player to interpret?

In this voiceless/textless narrative that we created, almost everything is left to the player to analyze and interpret. This point also makes this game accessible to anyone, regardless of the language they speak. The multiple Sans fit with our original script idea, but we’ve seen many different ways to give meaning to this and many other aspects of the game. It’s so much fun to watch how each person puts the pieces together to build the overall story. That’s also an important part of Out of Line’s experience.

The cliffhanger at the end of the preview is pretty shocking — what sorts of surprises can players expect in the rest of the game?

There’s still much to come as you progress through the game. We hope you can get that same “Oh!” feeling in various moments throughout. Not just story-wise, but hopefully whenever a player finds the solution to a more challenging puzzle as well. It is expected that the players experience different emotions throughout their journey: surprise, relief, a sense of urgency, a moment when it all seems confusing, and eventually when it all clicks together. If we manage that, we know we’ve succeeded in our goals.

What do you want players to remember from their experience with Out of Line?

We hope people can keep San and his magic alive in their hearts, such a curious, innocent, and determined creature. A lot like in an impressionist painting, it’s more about the emotion that the player is left with than anything else.

*

Out of Line will be released on June 23rd on PC, Switch, PS, and XB. After chatting with Francisco, I’m even more excited to see what surprises this gorgeous new indie has in store!

The post Out Of Line Interview appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH A well-themed 8-bit platformer that’s heavy on the charm.

LOW Not much guidance on the purpose of in-game collectibles.

WTF Was that boss’s chainsaw supposed to keep going after his death…?

An evil sorcerer has conquered the world. Lurching skeletons, floating phantom heads and chainsaw-wielding, hockey-mask-wearing fiends roam the land. Halloween is lasting… forever!

This is Halloween Forever, a retro-inspired side-scroller from 2016 that’s just been recently released on the Nintendo Switch. The game would look right at home on the NES thanks to simple, yet well-crafted 8-bit graphics. Clean textures and color choices help create an eerie world to explore, with basic (but responsive) controls consisting of jump and attack.

Players take control of Pumpkin Man, who upchucks candy corn to defeat roaming ghouls and ghosts as he makes his way through five Halloween-themed stages — woods, castles, dungeons, and so on. Each stage consists of multiple exciting boss battles like a large frog king, or a floating skull with homing missile eyeballs. All provide a challenge, but thankfully, the difficulty is of the tough-but-fair variety.

Like many old school titles, Halloween Forever offers replay with plenty of secrets to uncover. In addition to Pumpkin Man and Pumpkin Santa (he barfs presents!) players can unlock ten additional characters by finding their coffins scattered throughout the five worlds. These unlockable characters offer unique attacks and moves that might come in handy to find the other secrets like stone tablets that earn a secret ending for each character. I enjoyed uncovering the secrets, but only the most ardent fans will keep going until they reach a full 100% completion.

While retro in design, a few modern conveniences have thankfully been included in Halloween Forever. Players can increase their lives from the standard 2 to a whopping 99, as well as toggle the use of improved respawn spots to avoid replaying an entire level after death. For some reason the 99 lives option doesn’t save and needs to be turned on before each playthrough, but it’s a welcome addition regardless.

Unfortunately, no save game option is included apart from the unlocked characters. Halloween Forever can be beaten in roughly an hour, but there were days I didn’t have that much time to play. While it’s a minor inconvenience, it would have been nice to chapter select at one of the later stages instead of replaying through the first worlds again.

While it may be on the short side, Halloween Forever oozes charm that’s backed up by solid gameplay — this one’s a real treat for old-school platforming fans.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Imaginary Monsters and Poppyworks and published by Chuhai Labs. It is currently available on PS4, Switch, PC, and Vita. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch.  Approximately 3 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E 10+ and contains Comic Mischief, Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood. While the game is 8-Bit, there are splatters of what appears to be blood, but it’s not overly gory. Many bosses float off screen with stunned faces when defeated, though their designs may be slightly scary for younger gamers.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized.  There are no noticeable audio cues that impact gameplay. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. This game does not offer a controller map diagram, but movement is on the left stick or directional buttons. Jump is the A or B button and attack is the X or Y button.

The post Halloween Forever Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH One of this gen’s best indies, now on the go.

LOW Nothing new here for returning players.

WTF The ending is still one of the wildest moments in all of gaming.

The flurry of white bubbles are starkly beautiful as the young protagonist of Inside breaks the surface of a dark pool of water. Also beautiful? The way his intestines flail like scarlet confetti as he passes through the blades of an industrial fan, or the way his body breaks into red chips as a dog’s teeth pierce his polygonal skin.

The little boy at the heart of Playdead’s 2016 puzzle-platformer is running from something from the moment the game begins. When he scrabbles into view from a black forest and begins moving stage left, I couldn’t tell you what he’s running from with much clarity, and even if I could, I wouldn’t. Inside is a game that rewards going in with as little knowledge as possible.

What I can say is that the Switch version maintains everything that’s excellent about Inside while transferring it to a portable platform, and that this horror masterpiece is still a horror masterpiece on the Switch’s smaller screen.

Apart from remaining a modern classic, returning players won’t find anything new here since Inside is still the minimalist package that it was when it was first released. Press B to jump, press Y to grab, and that’s it. There’s no UI. There are no options, and there isn’t even a start screen. Returning to the game after shutting it down means being thrust without warning into whatever upsetting scenario was there before.

It’s also as linear a platformer as I’ve played. There are secrets tucked away throughout the environment (and even a hidden ending) but no alternate routes. Playing it through once means that few surprises await on a return visit. However, for new players, Inside is a treasure. The story is wordless, but powerful, and offers an appropriately grotesque critique of unchecked capitalism. Few of the puzzles are stumpers, but they provide the appropriate kind of brief resistance that allows a flow state to continue unbroken.

Platformers typically incentivize the player to continue their left-to-right movement with “carrots” scattered throughout the level. Coins, extra lives, power-ups and new tools all serve as dopamine hits to propel the player from the beginning of a level until the flagpole at the end, but Inside doesn’t have any of that. Instead, this dark, cinematic thriller motivates the player with curiosity by appealing to the simple desire to see what awaits the little boy when he finally runs out of screen.

Inside succeeds on the strength of the powerful mood that Playdead builds using crisp, clean audio work and the visual design of its oppressive but seductively mysterious world. That power hasn’t been lessened in the port to the Nintendo Switch — and in fact, I imagine that Inside’s horrors are perhaps even more potent when played in the claustrophobic cram of a subway, or in the human clot of an airplane. Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Disclosures: Inside was developed and published by Playdead and is available on PC, Xbox One, PS4, iOS and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on Switch. Approximately 3 hours were devoted to the game and it was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: Inside earned an M from the ESRB for Blood, Crude Humor, Nudity and Violence. The blood and violence are polygonal, but still disturbing. People are technically naked at times, but nothing is actually shown. I don’t know what crude humor the ESRB is referring to.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are no subtitles available in the options, but there is no dialogue in the game. This title is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable, but both the X and Y button can be used for grab.

The post Inside (Switch) Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The storybook intro and outro are rather nice.

LOW The controls are atrocious.

WTF A classic-style, side-scrolling platformer that only controls with the analog stick?

It’s generally understood that when I push a button to give my in-game avatar an order, he will follow that order immediately. This is how games have always worked, and I see no reason for this system to change. The protagonist of Castle of Heart, however, has the spitefulness of a small child who’s been told to pick up his toys. He recognizes that I’m in charge and he’ll eventually do what I say, but it may take some coercing and he’ll take as long as he can to do it.

No game that handles as poorly as Castle of Heart would ever earn a recommendation from me, but what sinks this title is how strongly its sluggish controls conflict with the central premise of the hero’s health constantly draining, effectively putting players on a timer as they race from one health pickup to the next. Castle of Heart demands speed and precision, but puts us in command of gaming’s slowest, most unwieldy protagonist. It feels like a practical joke.

On the surface, this is a medieval-themed, side-scrolling action-platformer in the same vein as Ghosts ‘n Goblins or the early Castlevania titles. It stars an unnamed knight who’s been cursed by a sorcerer to slowly turn into stone, and it controls horribly. I wish I could put it less prosaically than that, but it controls horribly. I’ve been banging my head against this game for the last week, hoping to unearth some trick to mastery that’s been going over my head. There isn’t one. It just controls horribly.

Videos of this title don’t do its slothful nature justice. One must actually play to understand why Castle of Heart’s excessive animation ruins its flow. The game feels like it’s set underwater. Every action is delayed by at least a quarter of a second, and doing anything is a matter of predicting what my surroundings will look like in the near future.

There’s a discernable period of time between when I press the jump button and when my knight leaves the ground. If I hit the attack button in midair, he’s back on the ground before he completes his swing. When I want my knight to grab a weapon, he stops in place and gingerly picks it up as if handling a volatile explosive, all while fully vulnerable to enemy attacks. Even changing direction takes a moment, and this is all when the game is actually functioning — sometimes I’d press a button and the intended action just wouldn’t happen, wasting valuable time and exposing the knight to further damage.

As far as the combat goes, it’s not worth engaging in. There’s no depth or nuance to it, and it only wastes time and increases risk. Blocking is useless because there’s no way to stagger or counter, so by the time the knight slowly lowers his shield, the enemy will have already wound up for another attack. Dodge-rolling is equally unproductive, since it’s barely faster than running, gives the player no invincibility frames, and can’t even be used to pass through enemies. So, barring occasional uses of expendable items like bombs and throwing knives, combat is a damage-per-second race, and health drops rarely cancel out the beating it takes to get them.

In light of this, I found that the best strategy for getting through levels alive was usually to jump over enemies and bypass combat altogether. It only gets tricky when enemies are outright blocking important routes, but even then it’s usually quicker and more efficient to just draw them out than to face them head-on.

Ironically, it’s not even that Castle of Heart is a particularly difficult game. A couple of the bosses are an absolute nightmare when they use attacks that are impossible to react to, but checkpoints are so generous that I was rarely stuck on anything. It’s just that Castle of Heart was never once enjoyable, that my deaths felt unjustified, and that the game has no redeeming qualities to make the struggle worth it.

I cannot overstate how pointless and infuriating Castle of Heart feels to play. I’d give it a smidgen of credit if it contained a single new or promising idea, but the only thing that makes it distinctive is the health-drain gimmick, and even that’s not original — it happens in any game when the player gets poisoned and doesn’t have an antidote handy. There’s nothing in this cumbersome gauntlet of moving platforms and buzzing deathtraps that hasn’t been done better in a thousand other smoother and less exasperating games. For players craving this sort of 2D action, go replay Shovel Knight instead. Rating: 2 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by 7Levels. It is currently available on Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch. Approximately six hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated Teen and contains Violence. There’s plenty of hacking and slashing, but there’s no blood and none of it looks remotely realistic. Nothing to be concerned about.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialog is text-only (save for the intro and outro clips, which are subtitled), and sound cues play no important role whatsoever. I played the majority of the game with the sound off and had no trouble. It’s fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

The post Castle Of Heart Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The concept and aesthetics are tops.

LOW Forgetting that higher color sentries can pass through lower-color doors

WTF It took hours to realize Circle had a non-combat function.

I can’t understand why games that have a lot going for them frequently fail to play to their strengths. I often see some perverse drive to do something that doesn’t make sense within the larger context of the work, an inability to let go of a precious idea, or the desire to add a rough final boss out of nowhere… because video games? I’ve seen it happen time and time and time again, and despite advancements in design and all the poor examples we’ve had the chance to learn from, developers keep making the same mistakes.

Take Headlander, for example. It’s got quirky humor, an incredibly strong art style and a fantastic concept. What it doesn’t have is satisfying combat, yet combat is exactly what the developers seem hell-bent on including. The gunplay they scrape together is ill-fitting at best, and incredibly frustrating at worst. The experience as a whole is brought down by this choice, and the project would have been better served by dialing back on it instead of doubling down.

Headlander’s premise is a good one. In the future, people have inserted their minds into robotic bodies in a bid for immortality. The AI meant to manage things is out of control, and the situation is going south. Their only hope is a person’s head (yes, just the head) that’s been revived in a lab and encased in a special tech-enabled helmet. With the ability to fly, to commandeer robot bodies it finds, and a number of other abilities, the head sets out to put things in order.

I was onboard with this setup from the get-go. It’s wonderfully bizarre and perfectly complemented by the incredibly strong visual style reminiscent of sci-fi films from the ‘60s and ‘70s–things like Logan’s Run or Barbarella. Everything feels kind of groovy and kind of mod, and every screen is super-saturated with rich colors and smooth curves. It’s an outdated vision of a future that never happened, and it’s both totally backward and super cool. The art direction is the strongest asset Headlander can offer, I’d say.

In terms of gameplay, it’s a simplified 2D Metroidvania, and I don’t mean “simplified” as a negative. The map and objectives are clear, there aren’t an enormous number of barrier types that correspond to new abilities, and in general, the action is pretty breezy and welcoming… Well, up to a point, anyway.

As one might guess, the options available to a head are fairly limited. In order to get things done, the head will constantly be appropriating robot bodies it comes across by ripping off their heads and using the neck stumps as a docking point. Sometimes it’s for laughs, as when attaching itself to a small vacuum cleaner or robo-dog, but usually it’s to take control of sentry robots.

One of the biggest elements of Headlander is that each area is gated by doors of several colors, and these doors are only accessible by controlling a robot of the appropriate color. Blue robots can pass through blue doors, and so on. It’s not a bad idea, but the game goes crazy with it in the first two chunks of the campaign–the bulk of playtime is going back-and-forth trying to find the right body for the right door, and then when passage is gained, it’s right back to finding a different robot for the next door. Although it’s not the most compelling gameplay, it’s not bad in short bursts. The developers simply rely on it too much and it becomes an annoyance rather than an engaging challenge.

When the head is flying around, stealing bodies and opening doors, it starts to take on a fairly puzzle-like vibe, and I think it generally suits the style well. With a few more varied tasks and a bit more dialogue, I would have happily signed off on this and given it a solid recommendation. Unfortunately, there’s more gunplay in Headlander than is warranted, and the combat here is not great.

Most of the robots the head hijacks come equipped with laser arms, and the devs have an unhealthy obsession with ricocheting shots. Once there’s more than an enemy or two in a room, the screen becomes a mess of crisscrossing beams bouncing off of the walls, ceiling and floor. The head can buy some abilities which mitigate this danger–more life, some shielding, faster health regeneration, and so on– but the combat never feels good and death can come quickly. Dying isn’t a huge setback since the save points are extremely generous (often in the exact room where the player died) but like the over-reliance on colored doors, it’s just more irritation.

This misguided focus on bouncy laser shootouts hits its nadir in the final leg of the adventure. There were a few rooms that verged on absurdity, and it’s worth noting that the game does an exceptionally poor job of explaining certain mechanics. I got absolutely stumped at the eleventh hour thanks to a force field I had no idea how to deactivate, and only stumbled across the solution by accident after resetting the game. By taking the wrong approach, I had rendered the puzzle effectively unsolvable, but didn’t know that I couldn’t solve it because I wasn’t sure how to complete it.

Although I absolutely love the aesthetics and concept of Headlander, the non-combat gameplay is only fair, and it’s brought down further with too much combat detracting from the things it does well. I was interested enough to stick around and see how things turned out at the end, but there were definitely a few times when I walked away and took a break out of annoyance. Like so many other examples before it, Headlander is another could-have-been that just doesn’t play to its strengths. Ketika permainan togel terus bergulir tanpa mengenal ketinggalan jaman, para bettor togel online terus dan kian semangat mencari untungan dari taruhan ini. Sehingga sulit dihentikan permainan togel online yang hadir melalui website online yang disediakan oleh para agen di indonesia. Mudah melaukan proses bertransaksi dengan para agen togel online di indonesia. Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Double Fine Productions and Adult Swim and published by Adult Swim. It is currently available on PS4, PC and Mac. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 8 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains suggestive themes and fantasy violence.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing: Subtitles are available for all dialogue and no audio is necessary for successful gameplay. It’s accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable in any way, and there are a large number of skills, some of which require holding down two or more buttons at once.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

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