A mediocre beat em up that takes inspiration from the generic popular early 90s beat em ups and ends up copying or creating even more amateur gameplay decisions while having less content.
The syndicate has kidnapped the sister of a woman they attempt to blackmail who instead attempts to rescue her with two friends. Each of the three characters has a similar moveset but with different combos. You have an attack, jump attack, super move escape attack that knocks enemies away and gives you brief invulnerability but takes away health unless you charge up a super meter by hitting enemies, dash, dash attack, grabble attacks and throws, up and down dodge by hitting either direction twice, attack that aims behind you or does a more powerful forward attack if used while advancing, and a special move that can also be used for an alternate dashing attack, and the more unique attack to hit enemies when they are knocked down. There is a button to block, maybe one out of every 10 games has a well functioning block feature and this is not one of them as it is too slow and limited in how it can be used to be of much use even more so because you will likely end up getting hit from behind eventually anyway. It is nice that they did bind the block button to a trigger as well as the behind attack and the super moves to the shoulder buttons as that ends up being a faster and easier way to use them then to hold B or hitting button combinations. Your attack variety is fine for a simpler beat em up in this style but each characters feels too similar.
You play through six short stages without much variety in your enemies, nothing particularly interesting about the locations or artstyle, and some of the worst and easiest bosses I've seen in the genre. There are some hit detection issues where it won't look like some attacks should be able to hit you but will, a lot of enemies can start a move that makes them invulnerable. You don't react fast enough to alternate between hitting enemies on both sides of you making you have to rely on the super move to get out of danger. Many enemies have an attack they do while they are getting up that limits the use of your attack to hit downed enemies. You can find a few melee weapons like a pipe, sword, and some wooden object that all handle in the same way and shorter range knife, these aren't interesting or that fun to use but I have to give them credit for making the knife do a decent amount of damage when a lot of games in the genre tend to make picking up feel like a handicap. On a first playthrough there are stage hazard warnings that give you no meaningful information for what you should do to avoid a threat. A warning flash might mean some barrels are going to be thrown at you from the side of the screen, a fast moving hook that may or may not seek your location (I couldn't really tell in three playthroughs) coming towards you, explosives being thrown in two places from up above, or a falling large crate that is about to land on you and will take up a good part of the screen.
You can unlock a boss rush and survival mode but these do nothing to give the game more life. The bosses aren't fun to fight and survival mode just sets you on the first screen of the game and sends generic enemies at you while dropping the occasional healing item or weapon.
The soundtrack is good.
It's like a Streets of Rage 2 that doesn't feel as good to play and with less content and character variety and while it can be an ok playthrough there are a lot better beat em ups out there now even ones that go for a similar 90s style feel that make this hard to recommend.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1759067225875726559
The syndicate has kidnapped the sister of a woman they attempt to blackmail who instead attempts to rescue her with two friends. Each of the three characters has a similar moveset but with different combos. You have an attack, jump attack, super move escape attack that knocks enemies away and gives you brief invulnerability but takes away health unless you charge up a super meter by hitting enemies, dash, dash attack, grabble attacks and throws, up and down dodge by hitting either direction twice, attack that aims behind you or does a more powerful forward attack if used while advancing, and a special move that can also be used for an alternate dashing attack, and the more unique attack to hit enemies when they are knocked down. There is a button to block, maybe one out of every 10 games has a well functioning block feature and this is not one of them as it is too slow and limited in how it can be used to be of much use even more so because you will likely end up getting hit from behind eventually anyway. It is nice that they did bind the block button to a trigger as well as the behind attack and the super moves to the shoulder buttons as that ends up being a faster and easier way to use them then to hold B or hitting button combinations. Your attack variety is fine for a simpler beat em up in this style but each characters feels too similar.
You play through six short stages without much variety in your enemies, nothing particularly interesting about the locations or artstyle, and some of the worst and easiest bosses I've seen in the genre. There are some hit detection issues where it won't look like some attacks should be able to hit you but will, a lot of enemies can start a move that makes them invulnerable. You don't react fast enough to alternate between hitting enemies on both sides of you making you have to rely on the super move to get out of danger. Many enemies have an attack they do while they are getting up that limits the use of your attack to hit downed enemies. You can find a few melee weapons like a pipe, sword, and some wooden object that all handle in the same way and shorter range knife, these aren't interesting or that fun to use but I have to give them credit for making the knife do a decent amount of damage when a lot of games in the genre tend to make picking up feel like a handicap. On a first playthrough there are stage hazard warnings that give you no meaningful information for what you should do to avoid a threat. A warning flash might mean some barrels are going to be thrown at you from the side of the screen, a fast moving hook that may or may not seek your location (I couldn't really tell in three playthroughs) coming towards you, explosives being thrown in two places from up above, or a falling large crate that is about to land on you and will take up a good part of the screen.
You can unlock a boss rush and survival mode but these do nothing to give the game more life. The bosses aren't fun to fight and survival mode just sets you on the first screen of the game and sends generic enemies at you while dropping the occasional healing item or weapon.
The soundtrack is good.
It's like a Streets of Rage 2 that doesn't feel as good to play and with less content and character variety and while it can be an ok playthrough there are a lot better beat em ups out there now even ones that go for a similar 90s style feel that make this hard to recommend.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1759067225875726559