I really enjoyed this game! It got its hooks into me and I couldn't pull myself away until I'd finished it. The game delivers a very satisfying metroidvania experience: the atmosphere is nasty and compelling, movement feels really good, the navigation of the interconnected world is just about perfect, the pace is great, secrets are fun to find. Judging it specifically as a metroidvania, I think it's great. I love exploring the world, finding shortcuts and doubling back with new abilities to find hidden items.

I only have minor critiques, and those would just add up to a close to perfect gaming experience. The weapons aren't super well balanced, so the shotgun pretty much sucks compared to the pistol/machine gun. Many of the bosses just come down to circle strafe and hold down the trigger. There is one boss that requires you to use the dash to dodge one of his attacks, and that feels really good. Most of the bosses' attacks can be pretty easily avoid just by strafing. I'd love to see more bosses require you to watch for telegraphs, dodge or jump to avoid taking damage. A couple of the bosses are pretty good, but most are pretty dull. Also the map is very rudimentary and not usually very helpful. You can't look around the map, and it's hard to see the little white blip that represents where you are.

Enemies don't respawn ever, which at first I didn't like, but the experience of traversing empty areas where you've already slaughtered every monster is its own kind of unsettling. I think, however, it would be better if as you get close to late game new, stronger enemies start showing up in old areas. You'd still get those empty moments, but it would make late game item hunting more fun.

It deals with some heavy subject matter in a way that feels more edgy than profound, but ultimately it's all in service of a solid story that is all of a piece with the disturbing aesthetic.

I thought it was good! Glad I picked it up.

It was a okay. everything feels pretty underdeveloped and underwhelming, but i liked what they were going for. i liked the art. the bosses were terrible though, with Umadermadine being the worst one. like, you can't just have a boss who's attack is a 30 seconds long stream of projectiles and expect it to be anything fun. so, yeah. Also, i feel like every Scumhead game i played yet (Lycanthorne I and II, Shrine) has this recurring theme of annoyingly hard and not fun late game bosses. just a thought

A natural evolution of the gameplay and aesthetic found in Shrine and Shrine II. Take the vibe from those games, add a heavy Metroidvania aspect to it, and you've got Vomitoreum. My quick and dirty suggestion is to try both Shrine games (or at least Shrine II), as they're both free, and if you dig the vibe, pick up Vomitoreum to show some love to the developer. I really appreciated the different types of gameplay and exploration options drip fed throughout. Nice variety of weapons, though some enemies felt a little on the tanky side for sure (less so than a few Shrine enemies, for what it's worth). But it's clear that the dev took a lot of learnings from the Shrine games and built something really cool out of it. Worth the cost of admission if you're into boomer shooters, especially those with Metroidvania leanings. If I had to guess, it took me 3-4 hours to play through in its entirety.

i think i felt more positive about this from the outset that i ended up doing in hindsight. the visual style is obviously the highlight here - and it is good, especially in particular areas. there is something nice about wandering through weird cartoony labyrinths in a Metroid format but still obviously in first person in the Doom engine. and it does feel like something that had a lot of heart put into it. even if it’s pretty short, it’s solidly executed. and there were areas that felt distinct, with some new surprises or interesting traits.

there are really times where felt like it could use more work or it just didn’t feel that refined - some areas were a bit empty, there were a few times where it felt buggy or overly grindy or there were random death traps for no reason, and a lot of the bosses were just “circle strafe and hold down fire to win” - in general there’s not exactly deep inspiring combat. it’s definitely a game that just runs in the Doom engine - you even get the Doom percentage stat screen at the end of the game. the plot is a bit like a Dark Souls fanfiction and feels amateurish at times.

my big complaint is the design feels a bit boilerplate outside of the cool visuals - very workmanlike, which is fine! in that way it made me think a little of older indie game designers like Locomalito or Daniel Remar who sort of have a retro sensibility aren’t exactly doing anything revolutionary in terms of design features in their games or whatever (Locomalito literally advertises his work as “traditional video games” which is... lol), but their games still have a distinctive mark. tho it is less refined design-wise than the output of those designers. but still it’s obviously coming from a developer with limited resources and time - and that is part of the charm. it reminds me of a lot of 00's games in that way.

but if you're expecting something more weird or off the beaten path due to the visuals, you're not really going to get that here. i wouldn't exactly call it an essential play for that reason, even if there were individual parts i liked.