My most anticipated game of the year, Not because I expected something of a high quality or groundbreaking, But mainly it stems from the fact that this game seems to be like a spiritual successor to the infamous 2015's Wii U exclusive, Devil's third (Which I did play in preparation at the start of the year), up to my knowledge, the concept of merging hack n slash and shooter elements isn't particularly all that fresh with games like Konami's NeverDead and already mentioned Devil third attempting and failing to blend these 2 genres in single package, So will Wanted: Dead be the one to finally nail it? The answer is a simple NO!... But it doesn't necessarily mean there isn't fun to be had, unlike Devil's Third, Wanted: Dead isn't a terrible game, Just delightful mess of game...
My first issue is that the level design doesn't contribute much to the gunplay which already feels like an afterthought element, the Gunplay plays like your modern cover shooter of taking cover and waiting for the enemy to pop out of their cover spot and kill them, yet you're not given much ammo to begin with and the only way to replenish it are the occasional enemy drops or the checkpoints, many of the areas you traverse tend to be more designed for hack n slash than a cover shooter with frequent appearances of tight corridor or paths, while secondary guns are useful against taking out some range enemies, the Grenade launcher, frag grenade and flame grenade can easily deal you a massive damage if you launch them in close proximity or in tight spots which makes them feel more like a liability.
You're left with the melee which does seem to be go to option and where the game can shines imo, especially when it receive its own dedicated tutorial, you're given a limited sets of combos with more promised later on with the skill tree unlockables, combos mainly consist of mixing up the Kitana and Pistol attacks, Overall I found it more useful to keep rushing and mashing melee attacks on the enemies instead of taking cover and shoot, slashing enemies also replenishes some health that's been lost briefly during the skirmish, the context sensitive finishing blows that can be performed on enemy at staggered or near-death state enemies and many look cathartic, While I Found the frag grenade to be practically useless with how fast the enemy AI can react and escapes it's impact, the flame grenades are good way to exploit the melee enemies and bosses as the flame keeps staggering them while you keep landing slashes on the other side, The levels try to maintain some originality with unique enemy variety is nice.
Unbalanced difficulty can also major problem with enemies even under Normal mode can be bullet sponges that barely stagger when taken damage, the melee enemies specially can take entire magazine to be killed off and the way they spawn in the levels tend to be very nonsensical, the checkpoints often tend to stretched far beyond reason which only leaves you more anxious to run out of health pickups due to the aggressive melee enemies but I will praise the game for not going with regenerating health route, the game certainly wants you to understand it mechanics more which promotes careful and good play so props on that front, The bosses are unremarkable and even in many cases are laughable considering their pattern tend to be the same as the strong melee foes where it boils down to properly reacting and parrying their attacks, the aggressive goons in groups were more intimidating than big bads themselves.
Unfortunately the storytelling tend to suffer from poor presentation, many story cutscenes that can go on with bad voice acting direction that leaves the character with not much vocal emotions, the characters facial expressions don't animate well either with some having the characters stare at the void, Although it's worth noting that the world building and characters were entertaining and interesting enough to keep my attention, Stone and her teammates are well fleshed out with defined personality traits and clear position on the bigger picture, Cortez being my personally favorite, sadly the moment I got interested in Stone's background and some of the story implications, the game decides to end with it barely feeling like an first act to a full story, ending with massive sequel bait that I'm not sure of the developers will be interested on doing after the game's poor reception.
Which now only leaves us with the side content which is very good, The Hub Police station is also quite fleshed out with unique character interactions and collectibles to keep you exploring the building passed on your story progress, The Mini-Games were also quite entertaining like the shooting practice range presents neat challenge for the players to part take in and even of the cast characters excessively challenges you in the leaderboards for a promised reward, The Crane serving as neat collectible figures for your room's diorama figures and music records and finally The arcade game, Space runaway is underrated gem that kept me addicted enough to score high first in leaderboard, but the rhythm based games like Karaoke and Ramen were bad due to the Screen tearing and Frame rate drops that occur consistently while playing them.
I won't say Wanted: Dead is a hidden gem and I do tend to have personal soft spots and bias towards jank games that try to be experimental at expense of its own quality, My recommendation only extends to those who shared same curiosity as mine and If you desire to play something that's flawed yet different from what today's major AAA market tend to offer, Please grab it at sale instead of full asking price!
My first issue is that the level design doesn't contribute much to the gunplay which already feels like an afterthought element, the Gunplay plays like your modern cover shooter of taking cover and waiting for the enemy to pop out of their cover spot and kill them, yet you're not given much ammo to begin with and the only way to replenish it are the occasional enemy drops or the checkpoints, many of the areas you traverse tend to be more designed for hack n slash than a cover shooter with frequent appearances of tight corridor or paths, while secondary guns are useful against taking out some range enemies, the Grenade launcher, frag grenade and flame grenade can easily deal you a massive damage if you launch them in close proximity or in tight spots which makes them feel more like a liability.
You're left with the melee which does seem to be go to option and where the game can shines imo, especially when it receive its own dedicated tutorial, you're given a limited sets of combos with more promised later on with the skill tree unlockables, combos mainly consist of mixing up the Kitana and Pistol attacks, Overall I found it more useful to keep rushing and mashing melee attacks on the enemies instead of taking cover and shoot, slashing enemies also replenishes some health that's been lost briefly during the skirmish, the context sensitive finishing blows that can be performed on enemy at staggered or near-death state enemies and many look cathartic, While I Found the frag grenade to be practically useless with how fast the enemy AI can react and escapes it's impact, the flame grenades are good way to exploit the melee enemies and bosses as the flame keeps staggering them while you keep landing slashes on the other side, The levels try to maintain some originality with unique enemy variety is nice.
Unbalanced difficulty can also major problem with enemies even under Normal mode can be bullet sponges that barely stagger when taken damage, the melee enemies specially can take entire magazine to be killed off and the way they spawn in the levels tend to be very nonsensical, the checkpoints often tend to stretched far beyond reason which only leaves you more anxious to run out of health pickups due to the aggressive melee enemies but I will praise the game for not going with regenerating health route, the game certainly wants you to understand it mechanics more which promotes careful and good play so props on that front, The bosses are unremarkable and even in many cases are laughable considering their pattern tend to be the same as the strong melee foes where it boils down to properly reacting and parrying their attacks, the aggressive goons in groups were more intimidating than big bads themselves.
Unfortunately the storytelling tend to suffer from poor presentation, many story cutscenes that can go on with bad voice acting direction that leaves the character with not much vocal emotions, the characters facial expressions don't animate well either with some having the characters stare at the void, Although it's worth noting that the world building and characters were entertaining and interesting enough to keep my attention, Stone and her teammates are well fleshed out with defined personality traits and clear position on the bigger picture, Cortez being my personally favorite, sadly the moment I got interested in Stone's background and some of the story implications, the game decides to end with it barely feeling like an first act to a full story, ending with massive sequel bait that I'm not sure of the developers will be interested on doing after the game's poor reception.
Which now only leaves us with the side content which is very good, The Hub Police station is also quite fleshed out with unique character interactions and collectibles to keep you exploring the building passed on your story progress, The Mini-Games were also quite entertaining like the shooting practice range presents neat challenge for the players to part take in and even of the cast characters excessively challenges you in the leaderboards for a promised reward, The Crane serving as neat collectible figures for your room's diorama figures and music records and finally The arcade game, Space runaway is underrated gem that kept me addicted enough to score high first in leaderboard, but the rhythm based games like Karaoke and Ramen were bad due to the Screen tearing and Frame rate drops that occur consistently while playing them.
I won't say Wanted: Dead is a hidden gem and I do tend to have personal soft spots and bias towards jank games that try to be experimental at expense of its own quality, My recommendation only extends to those who shared same curiosity as mine and If you desire to play something that's flawed yet different from what today's major AAA market tend to offer, Please grab it at sale instead of full asking price!