Currently my GOTY. The gameplay is incredibly smooth. Could use some better settings like being able to make subtilties bigger and a different color, same with the hud. The story was cool but i think i like some of the previous entries' stories a bit more

Coming back to add to this review now that I have completed NG++, got the true ending, completed the entire arena and all the missions. The game continues to be impressive in game-feel at every moment. Its so addicting to play and so easy to just boot up missions and have a blast with them. Even going back to the drawing board with builds in the lab is fun. There are a few stinker missions like Depths 1 which i despise and wish i didn't have to play through 3 times.

--Spoilers--

The story actually got even weaker for me now that i've seen everything. The Flames of the Raven ending feels like the one that got the most attention and is the only one i really liked. The other two felt both a little short with the narrative and gameplay. Final boss of the Liberator ending doesn't have a phase 2 for some reason? The true ending final boss was fun but its set piece was not nearly as memorable as some of the others moments earlier in the game which is kinda disappointing given how much you have to do to get here. I wish the story stayed more in the horrors of corporate proxy wars for resources like it was in the opening hours. The most memorable story moment for me is the mission where you go and kill a test pilot who sounds like he's just a kid getting caught up in all of this. I wanted more of those harrowing moments like this found in the earlier games

Just as fun as the original game and a wonderful game to play when you just want to vibe. It takes the formula from the original game and expands upon it, adding even more humor, unique situations/levels to work through, and of course cousins. I also love how the game's "plot" is about making fans of katamari happy by granting their requests. Mixed into that are some well done cutscenes telling the origin of the King of the Cosmos which I found very fun, it even lets you play as him for a few stages.

So, I decided to do a little digging on the development and circumstances of Wanted Dead and im convinced this is like a money laundering scheme or something. Like, this is definetly a crime right. Some rich asshole forms an entertainment company in switzerland called 110 Industries, which seems to consist almost entirely of this, Vapourware, and selling the debut album of Stephanie Joosten - most notable for playing quiet in MGSV - on Vinyl. He seems to really want to just make a game that's john wick, so he picks up Soleil and they just use his money to make a sequel to Devil's Third instead, being sure to cast Joosten and a Phillip-Morris model in lead roles, and put in the movie references the rich funder wanted in.

And yes, this game is just Devil's Fourth. Whilst Itagaki is oddly absent considering this game feels like a scam, It's the same Valhalla game studios team from Third, and it plays remarkably similarly. The main change is that combat is slightly less shit. You get pretty standard combos with your sword intermixed with a ludicrously powerful pistol used to stagger and parry enemies at a pretty high range. There's a heavy emphasis on canned finishers to restore health (Think doom 4), and the general sense is the game really wants you in the thick of things at basically every moment, slashing and dashing amongst the gunfire. It's a very chaotic system, and I would hesistate to say it's good, the enemy variety just isnt there, and enemies are just a bit too tanky to keep the flow great, but it's far improved from Devil's Third and is a serviceable action game with a pretty nice high degree of difficulty. I would go as far to say that it's bosses are pretty good, and I really like how fast the player dies - make the wrong mistake to even a single grunt and they'll kill you straight up, even on the difficulty that gives you cat ears.

But let's be real, that's really not appeal of Wanted dead when you get down to it. What is - is that will not see a game as truly baffling as Wanted: Dead in a long time. So many times it will make you question why. Why is there a relatively high production value full shmup included? Why is there this kinda rad mix of animated cutscenes intermingled in? Why do some scenes feel pieced together out of dialogue from different drafts? Why does the game clearly jab at some heavy stuff like health insurance and Margaret Thatcher for like 2 seconds and then drop it? Whats up with the Cooking videos featured heavily in the advertising but not in the actual game? Why is there a single (one) ladder that you can climb in the whole game? I legitimately could go on for much longer than this you have no idea, you go like ten seconds in this game and you wonder what the fuck the motivation behind the decisions was.

The game is all over the place to the point where I am in denial that it's just incompetence. A police officer pulling stuff from an interview that the SUPECT REFUSED TO TELL HER to go on to the next plot point is something Neil Breen would catch in the edit. The game's developers have been open that it's a throwback to cheapo PS2 games (presumably oneechambara being the point of reference?) but I seriously feel like this is all a bit. Am I being made fun of? Are Soleil making fun of this rich swiss asshole by making a shitpost? Am I now an accessory to money laundering?

Wanted: Dead is not a "weird game" in the way something like a Suda51 or Swery game is, or even LSD Dream Emulator. I'm tempted to compare it to kane and lynch 2 but that game is a million times more focused in it's vision and what it's trying to portray. I can't stop thinking about it, every decision it makes is so... wrong, yet also so deliberate. I've seriously never played anything like it.

It also, at times, also shines legitimately super brightly. I really like the banter between the gang, as weirdly odd as the voice acting is. I really like that one of it's primary characters is straight up mute and its a nice representation even. The mixing of media types and stuff is sick, there's one absolutely brilliant boss fight and the very final moments of the game provides a legitimately ace story twist which honstly makes me view the whole thing much more fondly.

The whole thing is bewildering. I can't stop thinking about it.

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Other "huh?" things I didn't mention for the sake of pacing

- Final level is absurdly long after the rest of the game was pretty good in this regard
- Claw minigame does basically nothing
- Difficulty curve insanely and blatantly all over the place, the first mission is one of the hardest.
- The degree to which the world is altered from the real world is odd and excessive.
- There's like 6 shower scenes
- Why do you get a free single revive like half the time when the game is overwise commited to being a tough classic action game? But you only get it when one member of your squad is there?
- Why is there such detailed gun customisation in a 5 hour action game
- Why is the one loading screen a very dated meme.
- Why does the one ninja elite enemy look like it's from a different game
- Why do the protagonists just not even mention sometimes why they're going to do a thing.

Make it make sense.