This is fun. It's a 2D Metroidvania, running with retro graphics and sound sets, stealing the Contra shooting system to turn it into a shoot-em-up. It features the usual non-linear exploration, with the acquisition of new abilities allowing access to additional areas.
Where it is different however is that it also is a little bit like a Rainbow Six game. You're an anonymous member of a SWAT equivalent, who has been drafted in to deal with a range of powerful monsters and undead creatures, controlled by the evil Princess Ahmanet. You've got a relatively normal set of tools for dealing with this horror film scenarios, in the form of guns, grenades and rapelling equipment.
The other particular novelty is that since Ahmanet can raise the dead into an unliving army, this can also happen to you. If/when you die, your corpse becomes one of her undead minions, and needs to be put down in order to retrieve the equipment it is carrying.
Like a normal metroidvania, as you acquire skills and tools they are added effectively to your inventory, but they are not magically kept when you begin again after death. When you die, you continue by playing as the next member of the team, not your original body, which means that you lack the big guns and health improvements. You have to put down the undead soldiers with only the basic equipment. And they are trying to kill you with everything you had when you died. This only gets worse if you die again, slowly building an unstoppable army of revived soldiers.
Pleasant range of monsters, from the usual skeletal creatures, who always seem to want to throw a rib at you, to the annoying flight pattern birds and insects, which are designed to be damned hard to shoot and are very good at it. Not as frustrating as it could be, and has some excellent bosses to challenge you.
I found it quite tricky, but it's not a type of game I typically play. Found myself having to fight against two copies of my poor soldier a couple of times, which should tell you how I fared against my dead self. Enjoyable though, and one I keep picking up to batter myself against it. Bosses are also fun.
Graphics and audio are excellent, feeling both reminiscent of the original Contra, but having much more impressive "production values", making it a very polished package.
Not spectacular, but enough fun that you'll finish it off. May not have much interest in replaying it.
Recommended.
Tagged: Game Metroidvania 2D Average difficulty PC