Another case similar to REKKR, not in that these games are very similar, but in that both fill the same niche. They both feel like something that could have come out back in the day, Zortch feeling like something you could get right in the middle of the year 2000 and see it turn into a cult classic, with smooth gameplay and a silly story and setting.

This game is impressive to me in so many ways, the custom engine in use here has wonderful vertex lighting, funky early 2000s physics and extremely smooth movement. The developer has focused a lot on optimizing this engine for as many systems as possible, and can apparently run on single core CPUs. If you have issues with it, report it, they seem to get to work on it really fast.

Another impressive aspect is the enemies, there's so many of them for a game that's of this sort and it still has more enemies than DOOM as well. They're also so mobile, a lot of them can jump around (or fly) so fast and with such precision that they can really flank you and surprise you. I had a lot of fun engaging in the encounters in the hard difficulty, I recommend jumping straight to it if you're already familiar with this kind of game, which you most likely are if you're looking into playing this one.

The levels aren't too long, having 20 of them and they're usually ~15 minutes and boss levels are only up to ~5 minutes long, while they can be confusing and there's no map system, if you look closely there's signposting to follow and you shouldn't remain lost for long. This game is pretty good at pacing and not overstaying its welcome.

Only thing I found kinda questionable at first was the sprinting being very modern, but later on I realized that if it was like DOOM where you can shoot while running you'd just be too unstoppable, so I understood why this decision to lock your weapons was made.

This game feels really authentic beyond its aesthetic and is clearly the product of passion. It's an impressive showcase of how to create something that feels just like a lost gem from the past without falling into the same issues that a lot of the games from the time had, and also it's so cheap that it's hard to say no to it. Please buy it, it's great.

Back when I was a young'un I played a lot of games that were thoroughly nice. Games that were by no means blockbuster entries or even intriguing finds that were destined to become cult classics from day one: but rather, games that were there basically just to fill the local general entertainment store's Mid Price bin. They weren't excellent, but they were completely enjoyable - and I played the heck out of them because I could only ever afford so many games and so what I had, I replayed a lot. There's a lot of perfectly decent 6-to-7 out of 10 games that I know inside and out because whenever I finished a game, I picked another one from my shelf to start replaying and so I'd end up coming back to these random cheapo picks from time to time. They were uncomplicated, relatively unambitious and yet completely enjoyable to play, sometimes maybe even with a little of their own unique personality or idea hidden under the generic graphics and anaemic plot.

Zortch costs about a fiver and - and I say this with the warmest possible sentiment - it reminds me so much of so many run-of-the-mill action games I had installed over my early years of hobby gaming. It knows what it's there to do, i.e. to get the player to shoot colourful enemies in comfortably absurd video game locations and enjoy the ride, and it executes it thoroughly enjoyably. It doesn't dazzle or try to convince the player that it's some kind of a cunning hidden treasure: it's just a fun little throwback shooter, and I had a really good time running through it because of that. When people talk about games where you can turn off your brain while playing, they typically refer to heavily action-filled FPSs and ARPGS that look like dumb fun with their hordes of enemies but which contain a microverse of hidden complexities in their incredibly sharp mechanics; on the other hand, when I played Zortch I could genuinely just tune out of deep thinking and just enjoy blasting silly block pixel creeps with a surprisingly pleasing array of weapons. Parts of it feel like a random central European Half-Life total conversion mod you downloaded on a whim, and that warms my heart. Even the graphics aren't trying to pull any kind of a smoke-and-mirrors trick using ancient aesthetics, they are simply crude blocky late-90s 3D graphics - and they're such a mood and I love them.

In the ever-crowding market of retraux FPS games, Zortch does not try to remind you of the great classics, nor integrate modern gameplay finesse into passably old-fashioned graphics and it definitely doesn't try to make some kind of a subtle statement on the genre. It's just a thoroughly enjoyable mid-tier FPS and it wears that badge with pride, and as backhanded a compliment that sounds it's its greatest strength. Not every game has to change the world, sometimes you just want something unconvoluted to spend time with and for that vibe, Zortch is an excellent candidate for any aged PC gamer to check out for a reminder of Simpler Times (TM).

Zortch is incredibly fun. If I had played it last year, it likely would have rated highly among the 2023 releases I played. The atmosphere, weapons, enemies, and humor really shine in this game. That's not to mention the level design, which is blissfully more alike to Quake II than Quake I, but with far more elegance. Without spoiling anything, the second level with the basketball court is absolutely unhinged and left by far the most memorable impression of a shooter level in recent memory. I would describe the aesthetic of the game as "ACME GoldenEye," and I really vibed with it. As others have mentioned it lends itself to a more Nintendo 64 feel than most other boomer shooters. Loved that your health caps at 200 rather than 100 and you can bump it up to insane levels.

An excellent game... for the price, but otherwise very unremarkable.

The weapons are fun to use and unique but, some of them are obviously much better than others.

Enemy balancing and placement is very obnoxious at times which forces you to camp corridors with the pistol's shield deployed but usually, pretty alright.

The aesthetics try to mimic the N64 which, I think N64 games have aged horribly visuals wise compared to its contemporaries from its generation but even without my bias, you can tell its a very budgety affair.

The music was honestly the lowest point of this game, it's not catchy nor atmospheric, just noise...

Still, it's a perfectly good game for its price and I didn't regret my time with it.

ZORTCH HEADS STAY WINNING

I was absolutely not expecting to like this game as much as I did. I heard through word of mouth that Zortch was a surprisingly excellent little Boomer Shooter, but looking at how crude it looked, I honestly expected it to be overhyped. I was wrong.

Zortch is a classic FPS that takes a lot of inspiration from Half-Life, Quake, and most surprisingly Turok. The art style is very low-poly, almost looking like it came right off of the N64, but it works really well. The crude nature of some of the art also really adds to the alien atmosphere of the entire game. The atmosphere in general is fantastic, with the soundtrack honestly being one of the high points of the game for me due to how alien and atmospheric it was.

However, what stole the show for me was the enemy variety. There are like 30 different enemy types in this game, and they are almost all unique. It really adds to the entire experience, and makes the entire 4 hours feel consistently fresh as they keep adding more enemies to deal with. The shooting feels great too.

My only real major downside is that I found the level design to be amateurish at times. Its the area that really struggles, with a lot of levels feeling samey and uninteresting. The lack of a map feature and landmarks also makes navigating some of them an absolute nightmare, but thankfully most levels are still pretty short. It's not the worst issue in the world.

Zortch was a surprisingly really fun and unique shooter in a genre that is beginning to sadly grow oversaturated and stale in the past few years. I honest to god hope for a Zortch sequel because I think this developer has the potential to make something even better.....or at least even weirder.

What a beautiful little game. Absolutely loved this.

Apparently Zortch is, for many people, the boomer shooter answer to Turok. Truth is, i never played Turok in my life, but i can definitely see the Unreal resemblance there. To me, Zortch is pretty much like Unreal but actually fun to play.
The fact that this game is made by a single person, who not only designed the game but also developed a custom engine of it’s own, is simply astonishing. For someone who’s into retro aesthetics, (from pixel art to low poly) this game just looks beautiful.

And when it comes to gameplay, is just pure fun. It’s not necessarily as frenetic as most of the boomer shooters. While, indeed, you’re able to play in a “rip and tear” style, you can also pick a more cover-shooter style. This freedom in how to approach almost every combat is one of the key aspects of this game.

Level design is retro as hell. Far from being linear, most of the times you’re given enough freedom to explore the map in different ways. Also, the variety of enemies is absolutely impressive. If i’m not mistaken, there are more than 30 enemy classes.

Considering how short this game is, i’m guessing there will be more Zortch content in the near future. I would only fix two things given that chance: First, the shotgun needs to be more powerful (it’s not bad, but is not as pleasant as it should be for today boomer shooter standards). And second, even if the ambient music is not bad at all, i feel like this game would be inmensely benefited with some form of upbeat EDM, in the style of Ion Fury or even Unreal.

zortch is magnificently simple. satisfyingly tuned guns and movement paired with engaging labyrinthine levels engrossed by N64 visuals are such a treat. it's all so wonderful. the dev put in so much joy into zortch and playing it is an exercise in evoking it. admittedly it's not very hard, or at least on 'warrior' difficulty, as the game buries you in ammo and health pickups. but the exploration and combat encounters are just so fun. kicking enemies to knock them off their feet, lobbing dynamite to gib a whole mob, crawling through vents to uncover secrets, it's a kitbash of turok violence, quake anxiety, and half-life investigation. it's unfathomably underpriced for $5. zortch is undervalued for how good it is despite its short playtime.

as someone who mostly missed out on the n64 and has no experience with those quake/turok likenesses, Zortch had no nostalgic value for me. it's just a solidly crafted game with a charming visual style. excellent use of lighting and palette all over the place. there's a good variety of weapons here with most of them having some kind of alt-fire shot.

i really enjoyed the map and odd (but great) enemy designs. maps were large and varied, but not so distinct from each other that each new map became a confusing maze. it was all very coherent.

something that really stuck out to me was how quiet this game was outside of combat. the ambient, eerie music/sfx throughout these maps sets the atmosphere for this bizarre world. that said, i do wish there were some more exciting tracks on here to fit the pace of the combat.

I thought Cultic was essentially theft when I paid just ten bucks for it but I just beat Zortch and it was only five dollars. I didn’t even hear anything about Zortch until the Steam Top 250 curator added it to their hidden gem category. The game deserves more love because this is in the upper echelon of quality of indie boomer shooter throwbacks. Zortch takes aesthetic and mechanic inspiration from the later 90’s shooters such as Quake 2, Turok 2, and most of all the original Unreal, and I think it exceeds them.

The level design hits the ideal of what I want these throwbacks to have with multiple ways to approach. Secrets are actually super reasonable and are mostly keeping an eye out in the environment for stuff like vents. I don’t even think this game has a map but I didn’t even need it the level design was such quality. There's strong enemy variety and the basic alien grunts are actually rather smart, their AI akin to the enemies of Unreal. They will jump around to try and get the high ground on you or flank you and they will shoot you through chainlink any chance they get. Unlike Unreal though this isn’t frustrating because they aren’t constantly juking all your shots. The weapons are mostly standard but are solid. Admittedly I didn’t even realize that the guns had alt-fire modes until I was in the final episode, which fixed some of the problems I had with the guns like how super bouncy the basic grenade launcher shot is.

The narrative is essentially non-existent until an infodump at the end of the game, but that’s not really a detriment for a game like this. The game also doesn’t have much in the way of a soundtrack, instead having more ambient sounds for most of the game. This does work as it adds to the atmosphere, but man games like Cultic and Dusk have just spoiled me on rad soundtracks.

As I’ve said Zortch needs more recognition, as it is, alongside Slayers X, one of the best throwback shooters that have come out this year.