What a deeply weird game.

Big Big Tron vibes from the setting / plot / theme / soundtrack / etc, but really the big takeaway I had was the influence from Out of this World, where movement is seemingly intentionally weird, and it’s not really combat focused, it’s really a puzzle game. Like, “do as the technofrog commands and get out a pen and paper to write down codes” puzzle game.

The bits that sucked were, unfortunately, the combat. It was stylish as all hell, but the actual movement and combo mechanics were lacking. Enemy combat design also left something to be desired. Like, some enemies are fine, they have patterns, learn them and punish. Others require special moves to stagger or whatever. Also fine. But there are two enemies in particular that just suck: one was a dude with a tower shield, who I could read and know when to punish, but had bizarre hurtboxes that extend behind him, and a tight window of where you needed to be placed to not get nailed. The other was a tank, which wasn’t so much a problem as it was super uninspiring. Really boring pattern, and you just had to not hit him or be hit. And if you do anything else he’s invulnerable.

(As an aside, I’m writing this while the credits are rolling, and these are some of the best Kickstarter backer call-outs I’ve ever seen. Full on credits scenes given to various tiers of backers.)

I beat the game after maybe 20 hours. It was pretty short. I got 31/34 achievements, and those suck because there’s no backtracking and there’s a whole class that can be missed. Boo to that.

Overall, it was good. A perfect Game-Pass Game. Straight banger soundtrack, B+ game. Recommended.