Carrion was a brilliant tentacle monster simulator for the first 3 hours that unfortunately receded to being a mediocre metroidvania as the novelty faded away. Granted, those early hours of the game were truly special. I loved watching my ball of gorey terror, animated with amazing detail and fluidity, bouncing around the labs in search of delicious humans. I had so much fun as I acted out thematic moments right out of monster flicks—hiding and crawling inside vents, snatching straggling soldiers while their comrades were distracted, and sometimes fully unleashing destruction by tearing apart the facility and painting the walls red.

But while these thematic moments were great hooks to get me into Carrion, the level designs weren’t strong enough to keep me engaged and sometimes even conflicted with the initial premise of the game. Why was I wasting so much time solving puzzles and delicately pulling levers with my tentacles, instead of eating people? Why was I wandering around the map, looking for some lame pipe-unplugging ability, and not just eating people? Why were the late game enemies so damn annoying, tanky, and terribly uneatable? All these gamey mechanics felt antithetical to the monstrous power fantasy I had been promised.

Thankfully, Carrion was a pretty short game. It didn’t take too long for the credits to roll after the initial rush of limb devouring mania waned. And while the late game was underwhelming, I could still find a few good monster moments in it. This game wasn’t quite as amazing as I hoped it would be, but it was still a couple hours of good fun. I’d recommend it at a discount if you’re a sci-fi horror fan.