Yeah baby, this is the good shit. Strikes a really nice balance with Stranger of Sword City's darker tone and some of the friendlier conveniences that stuff like Demon Gaze brought to the table. I get the feeling this was a lower budget affair for Experience, so there's some repetitive dungeon design, visually, but the art direction is so strong here that it doesn't really drag things down at all. For real, how does this team keep knocking it out of the park with their character art? All of their games look really different, visually, but they always have the most incredible player and monster designs.

But yeah, I loved this. I love the tone it sets, how everything is smoky, grimy, all-business, and completely mean. The in-game radio alternates between blaring out propaganda about how your job is so good and cool (it sucks and almost everyone involved is up against a wall and has to take this shitty dangerous work because they've got nothing else) and letting the world know how you being trapped in hell and potentially killed has led to the stock exchange soaring. People are getting absolutely eviscerated, but goddamn does it make that line go up. It's gonna make some CEOs VERY rich.

Fuck, I love Experience. Few studios get what makes the genre so special quite like they do.