That's what a game is, really. Sometimes you find a game, it's very different, and it's refined, it's not just open world stuff that you have to click on, it's over in a couple of hours. That's the kind of experience we play games for. Hotline Miami is exactly that kind of game. It's a very sweet game that ends in two and a half hours, offers a different world, doesn't blow your mind with its story, but it's not empty for those who want to look into it.
So what is this game about? Friends, I think this game tells something very beautiful. The main character gets a message on his phone. Go here to get the package, and we don't give a damn, we go there, kill everyone and get out. I think my main character can't make sense of it, just like I can't make sense of it, and I love this concept (even though I haven't seen much of it so far). I mean, usually games start in the middle and you play for half an hour to catch up while your main character already knows everything. In this game, your main character starts the game as clueless as you are. He vomits after his first massacre, but in the end, when we think about what we are doing as players, we don't like it very much. Of course, there is a factor of how much you can distinguish that it is a game. So far, I have only failed to be a villain in Undertale and RDR2. I mean, I know that they are games, but these two games really hooked me and almost ceased to be games. Coming back to our topic, I think Hotline Miami basically doesn't have a very deep story. I usually play games like this slowly and try to understand them, it gives me pleasure to figure out the story, so I can usually understand the story of Dark Souls games even without looking at the internet. But this game doesn't have that problem. It's like it doesn't want you to understand the story. And interestingly, it's a comfortable thing. I mean, big games in the gaming world now want to have good stories like God of War, but not every game has writers like that, and I'm tired of banal stories. At this point, games like Hotline Miami come to our rescue in the mode of "there is a story, but you don't need to worry about it, you have enemies, kill them". We can play without thinking too much. What do I understand about the story? We're trying to avenge something and we're taking down the Russian mafia, there are jails and comas and stuff like that, but I felt like the story wasn't fully told. I guess I'll understand it fully if I play the second game, but that's it for now. I don't even care, to be honest, if they had written a story that would make this game unnecessary head scratching, I would have been annoyed. Keep it up, we don't have to read novels in every game.
The gameplay is where the game shines. Hotline Miami offers us a "one shoot or oneshot" gameplay from an overhead viewpoint. You can kill anyone with a single stab, and if you take one of those stabs, you die. That's the basic mechanic of the game, then of course weapons are added and they're exactly the same, you only have one life no matter what weapon it is, and so do your enemies. The game starts you from the beginning of the level as soon as you die. There are frequent checkpoints between levels, there is no annoying loss of progress. You die a lot in the game, but the game doesn't have a difficult theme in general. Although it may not seem like it at first, the game is more about knowledge than reflexes. The more you master the structure of the chapter, the more you make your plan accordingly and proceed accordingly. In other words, you can't dive into rooms on your own, you draw a path in your head as soon as you start the chapter and proceed accordingly. Although you need to rely on your reflexes in case of a mishap in the level, this game basically wants you to use your mind rather than your wrist. You can understand this by watching the boss fight, which I spent 15 minutes on because I didn't understand it. As far as I remember, there are 2 bosses in the game and these are completely gimmick fights. In other words, you need to know what to do, and after that it's simple. In a game like this, it would definitely not be fun to constantly shoot an enemy with a life bar with a gun, but I wanted 1-2 more bosses. Since the game is already short, the moment you start to get bored in the gameplay loop, it starts to end, you complete the story and leave the game. Another important mechanic of the game is the masks, you wear these masks throughout the level and you get power-ups throughout the level. There are features such as moving faster, starting with a knife (normally you start without a weapon), silent gunshots. You normally start the levels with a punch, and the punch is not a single shot like a knife. After the first blow, the enemy is knocked down and you have to go over and finish him off, which takes a long time compared to the weapon. Weapons like knives and clubs are both single shots and silent. However, weapons such as pistols and machine guns make noise every time you shoot and enemies naturally come at you. Enemy AI works very differently. Sometimes they can see you from kilometers away and take you down with a single bullet, but when they see you go out the door, kill you and come back in, they literally come to the same place to die. In this case, even though it would have made more sense for them to wait for the door with a gun in the distance, it could have been very cruel. Since you start from the beginning of the level as soon as you die, the pace of the game is very fast and dying doesn't feel like torture. It's more like a time to try new tactics. As you play the same level, you realize that you are playing better. There's nothing more satisfying than jumping into the middle of a level you'd normally play scared of and taking everyone out with a single bullet. This gameplay loop is basically very nice and the game ends without getting boring. It's also special, I don't remember it in any other game.
Even though the art design of the game is not very special, I think it fits the theme of the game very well. So it's really hard to imagine this game with other kinds of graphics. I think it looks good, if not visually spectacular. Especially the blood that appears after fighting your enemies is very well reflected. You can tell how you got there by looking at the blood. The masks are also very nice, even though I didn't see them as much as I expected while playing, the designs are nice and I would want a few of these masks in real life. Another area where the game shines is the music and sound design. First of all, the sounds of the weapons are very impressive. However, they made very good choices in terms of music. As far as I understand, they have taken music that has been done before rather than their own music and this is really admirable. Because most of the soundtracks of the games I play are made by themselves and they usually don't do a great job. In this case, instead of always making your own music, especially when it's appropriate for the theme, you can turn to such music. That being said, I also had a hard time finding the game's soundtrack in an organized way, and it's nice to listen to it in playlists that you can listen to in an appropriate situation, rather than having specifically good tracks.
So if you don't think you can do something well, don't pay too much attention to it and focus on what you have in mind and you'll make a much better game. Hotline Miami is a very good example. If they had put more resources into the story and the music, it probably wouldn't have had such good gameplay because they wasted resources. Hotline Miami is definitely a very fun, refined game that offers such a different and beautiful gameplay. I highly recommend it to everyone and I can't wait to play the second game, which builds on such solid mechanics and will probably go much further with its variety of weapons, levels and gameplay.
So what is this game about? Friends, I think this game tells something very beautiful. The main character gets a message on his phone. Go here to get the package, and we don't give a damn, we go there, kill everyone and get out. I think my main character can't make sense of it, just like I can't make sense of it, and I love this concept (even though I haven't seen much of it so far). I mean, usually games start in the middle and you play for half an hour to catch up while your main character already knows everything. In this game, your main character starts the game as clueless as you are. He vomits after his first massacre, but in the end, when we think about what we are doing as players, we don't like it very much. Of course, there is a factor of how much you can distinguish that it is a game. So far, I have only failed to be a villain in Undertale and RDR2. I mean, I know that they are games, but these two games really hooked me and almost ceased to be games. Coming back to our topic, I think Hotline Miami basically doesn't have a very deep story. I usually play games like this slowly and try to understand them, it gives me pleasure to figure out the story, so I can usually understand the story of Dark Souls games even without looking at the internet. But this game doesn't have that problem. It's like it doesn't want you to understand the story. And interestingly, it's a comfortable thing. I mean, big games in the gaming world now want to have good stories like God of War, but not every game has writers like that, and I'm tired of banal stories. At this point, games like Hotline Miami come to our rescue in the mode of "there is a story, but you don't need to worry about it, you have enemies, kill them". We can play without thinking too much. What do I understand about the story? We're trying to avenge something and we're taking down the Russian mafia, there are jails and comas and stuff like that, but I felt like the story wasn't fully told. I guess I'll understand it fully if I play the second game, but that's it for now. I don't even care, to be honest, if they had written a story that would make this game unnecessary head scratching, I would have been annoyed. Keep it up, we don't have to read novels in every game.
The gameplay is where the game shines. Hotline Miami offers us a "one shoot or oneshot" gameplay from an overhead viewpoint. You can kill anyone with a single stab, and if you take one of those stabs, you die. That's the basic mechanic of the game, then of course weapons are added and they're exactly the same, you only have one life no matter what weapon it is, and so do your enemies. The game starts you from the beginning of the level as soon as you die. There are frequent checkpoints between levels, there is no annoying loss of progress. You die a lot in the game, but the game doesn't have a difficult theme in general. Although it may not seem like it at first, the game is more about knowledge than reflexes. The more you master the structure of the chapter, the more you make your plan accordingly and proceed accordingly. In other words, you can't dive into rooms on your own, you draw a path in your head as soon as you start the chapter and proceed accordingly. Although you need to rely on your reflexes in case of a mishap in the level, this game basically wants you to use your mind rather than your wrist. You can understand this by watching the boss fight, which I spent 15 minutes on because I didn't understand it. As far as I remember, there are 2 bosses in the game and these are completely gimmick fights. In other words, you need to know what to do, and after that it's simple. In a game like this, it would definitely not be fun to constantly shoot an enemy with a life bar with a gun, but I wanted 1-2 more bosses. Since the game is already short, the moment you start to get bored in the gameplay loop, it starts to end, you complete the story and leave the game. Another important mechanic of the game is the masks, you wear these masks throughout the level and you get power-ups throughout the level. There are features such as moving faster, starting with a knife (normally you start without a weapon), silent gunshots. You normally start the levels with a punch, and the punch is not a single shot like a knife. After the first blow, the enemy is knocked down and you have to go over and finish him off, which takes a long time compared to the weapon. Weapons like knives and clubs are both single shots and silent. However, weapons such as pistols and machine guns make noise every time you shoot and enemies naturally come at you. Enemy AI works very differently. Sometimes they can see you from kilometers away and take you down with a single bullet, but when they see you go out the door, kill you and come back in, they literally come to the same place to die. In this case, even though it would have made more sense for them to wait for the door with a gun in the distance, it could have been very cruel. Since you start from the beginning of the level as soon as you die, the pace of the game is very fast and dying doesn't feel like torture. It's more like a time to try new tactics. As you play the same level, you realize that you are playing better. There's nothing more satisfying than jumping into the middle of a level you'd normally play scared of and taking everyone out with a single bullet. This gameplay loop is basically very nice and the game ends without getting boring. It's also special, I don't remember it in any other game.
Even though the art design of the game is not very special, I think it fits the theme of the game very well. So it's really hard to imagine this game with other kinds of graphics. I think it looks good, if not visually spectacular. Especially the blood that appears after fighting your enemies is very well reflected. You can tell how you got there by looking at the blood. The masks are also very nice, even though I didn't see them as much as I expected while playing, the designs are nice and I would want a few of these masks in real life. Another area where the game shines is the music and sound design. First of all, the sounds of the weapons are very impressive. However, they made very good choices in terms of music. As far as I understand, they have taken music that has been done before rather than their own music and this is really admirable. Because most of the soundtracks of the games I play are made by themselves and they usually don't do a great job. In this case, instead of always making your own music, especially when it's appropriate for the theme, you can turn to such music. That being said, I also had a hard time finding the game's soundtrack in an organized way, and it's nice to listen to it in playlists that you can listen to in an appropriate situation, rather than having specifically good tracks.
So if you don't think you can do something well, don't pay too much attention to it and focus on what you have in mind and you'll make a much better game. Hotline Miami is a very good example. If they had put more resources into the story and the music, it probably wouldn't have had such good gameplay because they wasted resources. Hotline Miami is definitely a very fun, refined game that offers such a different and beautiful gameplay. I highly recommend it to everyone and I can't wait to play the second game, which builds on such solid mechanics and will probably go much further with its variety of weapons, levels and gameplay.