I really had no idea what to expect from this game. The gameplay is like Hollow Knight, with a heavy emphasis on bosses and combat. The progression is similar to rougelikes, like Nuclear Throne, with weapons and evolutions that allow you to create insane builds. It sounds like it could be pretty fun, but it is constantly constrained by questionable game design.



Death, the character, controls strangely. From the get go, you are introduced to combat similar to Smash Brothers, having designated attacks according to the direction you hold your movement button in. The attack button is a long attack combo that changes based on the weapon you have equipped. You have a dash with IP Frames that has a quick cooldown.



NONE of this works. The directional attacks have no real place in this game and you'll find yourself pressing these buttons by accident. The only real use is the upwards attack button that acts like a second jump, which you can just substitute for a double jump.

The attack animations are FAR too long in a game like this, but the game attempts to fix this by having attacks STUN the enemies and bosses. None of the mobs ever pose a threat, because you can stand directly in front of them and mash the attack button until they die. You can cancel some boss attacks by attacking them until they get stunned, which isn't particularly bad, but it gets worse because....

You are simply more powerful than everything else in the game. You are already faster than all of the bosses bar one, so that IP Frame dash I mentioned earlier makes everything a joke. DID I ALSO MENTION YOU HAVE AN ULTIMATE SKILL THAT MAKES YOU INVUL FOR IT'S BEGINNING ANIMATION? This game truly gives you too much power. You will almost NEVER get hit in this game if you play with even a little bit of attention. The game is just painfully easy, but it doesn't even stop there.

This is a rougelike, so it needs a variety of weapons and powers to make each run different. You are limited to 2 weapons at once, Physical Weapons that have cooldowns and Magic Weapons that use mana.

None. I mean NONE of the weapons feel good to use. The physical weapons feel as slow as drinking a potion in fucking monster hunter. Magic Weapons only exist for spamming like hell. Some of the magic weapons break the fucking game, allowing you to kill some of the bosses without even being in the same room by spamming magic homing missiles before the boss encounter begins. Oh, and on the chance you don't get decent weapons, you actually get to play the game.



One of the only redeeming qualities of this game is the decent boss design. The game has boss design on the complexity level of Hollow Knight, making you learn multiple attack patterns. The bosses have good tells and competent attacks, for the most part. If you play right, you can be as aggressive as you want. Still, the bosses are a cakewalk if you upgrade damage and have decent weapons, but on the off chance you DO die. Well, have fun replaying the game from the beginning to get back to the boss. Normally, this is fine, but each run of the game is FAR too long for it's own sake.



Oh, and the level design is non-existent and it becomes a chore to just speedrun your way through every level just to fight another boss. Being a rougelike does this game absolutely zero positives and just creates a ton of tedium.

It's bad.

Metal: Hellsinger is at odds with itself throughout the entire 4.5 hour playthrough.

On one hand, rhythm mechanics are insanely fun. Shooting and dashing to the beat feels GREAT. Reloading to the beat is a great way to make an otherwise useless mechanic feel engaging.
However, the game falls short in fully embracing the rhythm aspects, causing them to feel somewhat inconsequential. Enemies move at their own pace, which means players don't always have the opportunity to play in sync with the beat.

That alone is enough for me to dislike this game. Half of the time, the game feels like Doom Eternal with some BPM mod slapped on it. Not to mention the questionable enemy design, effortless boss fights, and a really shitty challenge mode.

Where are the colorful score indicators? Good Great Perfect? Why is the camera behind a metal beetle? Why is all of the music electro-industrial noise? Thumper is NOT a music game, it's a true rhythm game.

The core gameplay is not too dissimilar to the typical BEMANI series games. You stay on a track and react to "notes" coming your way. Hit them on time and you can score an S rank on a stage. The main difference between Thumper and it's coworkers in the genre is that Thumper cares little about how well you can perfect hitting notes, it cares about how well you can preform overall. The game allows you to get hit once before you die, but you can alleviate this issue by taking a risk and going for a "thump". Each successful "thump" nets you another life and is the key mechanic in the game.

The game is HARD, but the developers made sure to ease you into the chaos with a fantastic learning curve. Each mechanic is shown off in a very easy to understand way, and as a plus the more mechanics you learn the better the game starts to feel. You'll find yourself trying older stages and wondering why any of it felt hard in the first place. The best part about that is that the game is pretty short too, so you'll get to that point in maybe one or two sessions.

I care a lot about aesthetics in video games and for something that isn't some otaku appealing nonsense, I quite like the direction the game goes for. It works very well with it's abstract noise OST and you REALLY do feel like... a space beetle fighting geometrical structures and vaguely aquatic objects. (It's just like Dariusburst)

Play it, if you want a real challenge of reaction time.
Despite it's very off-kilter "music" game design, I got a very similar rush of adrenaline I'd find in the representative faces of the genre.