Was blown away when I was reminded this came out THIS YEAR, both because game pass and a good machine is letting me play new games on PC like some kind of European royalty, and also because it feels like I missed the hype by a million years. It came out, everyone identified that it kicked ass, and then it was forgotten immediately. I gotta assume it's because, compared to the legacy of dudes like Dante and Bayonetta, every character in this is bland as hell and the story is just Libertarian nonsense pretending to be punk. And unlike when Ninja Theory did that there's no memorably insane dialogue to stick in your head.
Luckily, they also failed to repeat Ninja Theory making a bad game! This one rules! Of course, the rhythm elements make me think of Necrodancer, but unlike that game I'm not terrible at this. They pull a bunch of rhythm game stuff in at various points, though, like there's a LOT of Space Channel 5 to go around and it all works. Syncing everything to the beat is also another way of making the whole delay-combo mechanic they're carrying over since the DMC days work better. There's a level of complexity removed from the combat from those older games to allow for all the management of cooldowns and rhythm and just generally paying attention to everything you have to do. They also don't punish you harshly in score for being hit which I think was a good move. It's just hard to keep track of everything, and I'm sometimes dubious about how visible the tells are that someone's going to attack you. That said I played on normal and literally never went below A-rank on any fight so take it as you will.
Anyway, if you like this kind of action game at all this is one of the great ones, not one of the shitty knockoffs, which you could guess from the pedigree. I kind of want to play with the stream mode on to hear the original tracks because, while the licensed music is full of great tracks used very well, I'm always going to be more impressed by MGR's original vocal tracks than I am by just paying Trent Reznor money. Or whoever gets the money when you put the Nine Inch Nails in here I dunno. I hope Trent gets some of it. It's just a game that looks really slick but is afraid to stray from basically aping Marvel movies for its everything. There are some good and funny moments in there but when I realized replaying the levels for completion would require me to sit through a ton of unskippable dialogue again I simply uninstalled it for now.
I was going to end with my top music moment but I don't wanna spoil it so, it's close to the end of the game. They put the best stuff there, which is admirable and brave.
Luckily, they also failed to repeat Ninja Theory making a bad game! This one rules! Of course, the rhythm elements make me think of Necrodancer, but unlike that game I'm not terrible at this. They pull a bunch of rhythm game stuff in at various points, though, like there's a LOT of Space Channel 5 to go around and it all works. Syncing everything to the beat is also another way of making the whole delay-combo mechanic they're carrying over since the DMC days work better. There's a level of complexity removed from the combat from those older games to allow for all the management of cooldowns and rhythm and just generally paying attention to everything you have to do. They also don't punish you harshly in score for being hit which I think was a good move. It's just hard to keep track of everything, and I'm sometimes dubious about how visible the tells are that someone's going to attack you. That said I played on normal and literally never went below A-rank on any fight so take it as you will.
Anyway, if you like this kind of action game at all this is one of the great ones, not one of the shitty knockoffs, which you could guess from the pedigree. I kind of want to play with the stream mode on to hear the original tracks because, while the licensed music is full of great tracks used very well, I'm always going to be more impressed by MGR's original vocal tracks than I am by just paying Trent Reznor money. Or whoever gets the money when you put the Nine Inch Nails in here I dunno. I hope Trent gets some of it. It's just a game that looks really slick but is afraid to stray from basically aping Marvel movies for its everything. There are some good and funny moments in there but when I realized replaying the levels for completion would require me to sit through a ton of unskippable dialogue again I simply uninstalled it for now.
I was going to end with my top music moment but I don't wanna spoil it so, it's close to the end of the game. They put the best stuff there, which is admirable and brave.