well I think after playing for 5 hours and after my last log I have to drop this one. I think this has been a great example of why stylistic choices are so important in games for me, the gameplay itself is great but every other choice in this game feels like it was designed specifically to aggravate me. I think one of the villains said something so cringy that I paused during combat just to take in what I just heard, died, alt F4ed the game and decide I'm done with it.

I'm the kind of person who likes to replay levels for high scores in these kind of games and I'm going through on the hardest difficulty my first try so that means lots of retrying, which means lots of having to hear the same god awful dialog over and over again. Even skipping the cutscenes I just can't ignore it, there is no way I want to hear any of what the characters are saying even once let alone many times, which means I know I'm never going to replay these levels, especially since a lot of them have very long lulls inbetween the combat just to have more time for the characters to say "uh... guys?" at me.

I know action games aren't known for having great story but there's a difference between a mediocre story or an overly campy one which is at least somewhat entertaining, and then an actively aggravating one like this.

Finally for a rhythm game the soundtrack was really disappointing, most of the game is a similar sounding guitar riff and then there's a few Dadrock licensed tracks for the bosses.

If you put this gameplay in a different stylistic package this could have been a 5/5 game for me but that's not the world we live in unfortunately.

this has to be the single most insulting release of all time. It's not a sequel it's a justification to replace Overwatch's existing monetization with far more predatory monetization.

This is the best argument against the "games as a service" model that exists. The original Overwatch is dead and lost to time, the people who spent $40 on it can go get fucked according to Blizzard. What had potential to be a beloved casual and fun game beloved by many like Team Fortress 2 was milked dry of any potential it had by corporate greed. Forced eSports and enough in-your-face monetization that the game's UI may as well be an advertisement.

I just wanted to write a first impression on this, I'm absolutely loving the gameplay but this game has maybe the absolute worst case of millenial writing I've ever seen. It somehow hits every note at once. Obnoxious main character, really over the top voice acting with characters hitting awful quips constantly to the tune of "so... that just happened" and "don't stand under the crushers... obviously...." and "You better pay me extra for this! - But I'm not paying you at all..."

To top it all off the story is an extremely on the nose and shallow critique of capitalism that boils down to constant jokes about how hard the villains overwork their labor force. It's crazy that this was all done unironically and not as some parody of terrible Marvel Cinematic Universe style writing.

If I could ignore it it wouldn't be a big deal but this is one of those games where the characters constantly talk during gameplay, additionally the game bombards you with unskippable tutorials constantly that treat the player like they are 5 years old and don't know how to navigate a UI to buy shop upgrades, and all of these tutorials also are bombarding you with the terrible terrible dialog.

It's a shame because I'm really picky about action games and there's very few that I feel set themselves apart enough from Devil May Cry to the point where I enjoy them, this has been one of the few due to the rhythm game aspect but everything except the gameplay has left such a sour note so far. I'm hoping to trudge through it and see if it'll get better.

there is a very singular focus on the movement which is very fun and feels very good and this might be someone's favorite game because of it, however this clearly came at the expense of most other aspects in the game. The level design is really weak and you're often hitting dead ends at the end of a linear and difficult platforming section just to backtrack for some powerup you missed, its really easy to accidentally sequence break only to get yourself stuck later (some of the sequence breaks feel easier than the intended platforming path) and the combat is kind of a mess for the short time it's happening.

Also worth noting that one of the most important movement mechanics in the game (being able to backflip by jumping out of the startup of Strikebreak) is never explained to the player for some reason, there's some other mechanics that aren't but those aren't super necessary unless you're intentionally trying to sequence break, the backflip on the other hand makes most platforming challenges in the game much cleaner so it feels odd that its not taught to you.

The way the character controls is really fun and offers some interesting platforming, and the music and atmosphere is good. That is going to be enough for a lot of people to love this game but its not without flaws.