The foundation is perfect, the core gameplay leaves so much to be developed on top of the base idea. The door is open for so many opportunities.
And yet?
At first, you'll have fun for a bit. The gameplay is refreshing, the mechanics are really neat, etc, etc. After a while you'll realize the forumla barely changes or innovates on itself and eventually you'll realize it's like this for the entire game.
Mr. Shifty decides to rely on redundancy for about 4/5ths of the game. There's the occasional new enemy type, weapon type, or level design which might force you to slightly alter how you go about tackling the game, but a majority of the time there aren't really any major ideas or changes which enhance the teleportation mechanic. No upgrades and no interesting interactions via "shifting," it is what it is. Halfway through the game I was already feeling like getting it over with, they run out of content and new ideas to utilize so quickly and playing the game feels like an absolute chore. Its difficulty is founded on frustrating slop where they place enemies and weapons wherever they felt like without any real second thought to it, stage-design likewise. Some levels are stupidly easy and some levels are obscene in difficulty because there's no real thought behind level design. Some sections might have long periods of fights without a screen transition meaning you have to endure for however long it requires, and sometimes the screen transition happens 5 seconds after entering a room. If/when the game crashes, you're expected to restart from the very beginning of the stage because of an oversight. Fun!
On the topic of enemies, the AI is just fucking stupid. It's completely inconsistent in how it acts and at times just completely broken and unresponsive. They feel so rough and annoying to deal with. It doesn't help that it feels this way for over half of the cast of enemies.
Story doesn't really have anything to offer either, it's very elementary. "Big bad guy has something in his tower and you need to KILL him." The humor doesn't alleviate the boring story because it's just as bland and lame.
And yet?
At first, you'll have fun for a bit. The gameplay is refreshing, the mechanics are really neat, etc, etc. After a while you'll realize the forumla barely changes or innovates on itself and eventually you'll realize it's like this for the entire game.
Mr. Shifty decides to rely on redundancy for about 4/5ths of the game. There's the occasional new enemy type, weapon type, or level design which might force you to slightly alter how you go about tackling the game, but a majority of the time there aren't really any major ideas or changes which enhance the teleportation mechanic. No upgrades and no interesting interactions via "shifting," it is what it is. Halfway through the game I was already feeling like getting it over with, they run out of content and new ideas to utilize so quickly and playing the game feels like an absolute chore. Its difficulty is founded on frustrating slop where they place enemies and weapons wherever they felt like without any real second thought to it, stage-design likewise. Some levels are stupidly easy and some levels are obscene in difficulty because there's no real thought behind level design. Some sections might have long periods of fights without a screen transition meaning you have to endure for however long it requires, and sometimes the screen transition happens 5 seconds after entering a room. If/when the game crashes, you're expected to restart from the very beginning of the stage because of an oversight. Fun!
On the topic of enemies, the AI is just fucking stupid. It's completely inconsistent in how it acts and at times just completely broken and unresponsive. They feel so rough and annoying to deal with. It doesn't help that it feels this way for over half of the cast of enemies.
Story doesn't really have anything to offer either, it's very elementary. "Big bad guy has something in his tower and you need to KILL him." The humor doesn't alleviate the boring story because it's just as bland and lame.