Like plenty of other people, I assume, I decided to try out OTXO after watching Raycevick's video that showered it with praise. Hotline Miami is one of my favorite games, and favorite game series, of all time, so a Hotline Miami inspired game felt right up my alley. I was looking forward to endlessly playing this for months on end if it was as good as Raycevick made it sound. However, while I understand most of the praise being given to this game, I ultimately just can't agree with it. It sacrifices so much of what made Hotline Miami work in service of its roguelike design that it ends up completely losing what made Hotline Miami so special in the first place.

I'll start of by pointing out what I liked about the game. The art style is pretty interesting, it's not the most unique style I've ever seen, but it gives the game a decently firm sense of identity. I also liked the general feel of the game, while I think it misses the mark of what Hotline Miami was aspiring to by quite a lot, it still manages to create a great combat loop, one that I would have loved a lot more if I wasn't constantly thinking about Hotline Miami while I was playing it.

Okay, now to get onto my big problem with the game.

Something that Raycevick forgot to mention (or maybe purposely didn't mention) while he was talking about Hotline Miami in his video was the importance of the quick restart. When you die in Hotline Miami, you just press a single button and you're thrown immeidtlay back in the fray with no loading screen. You just have to start at the beginning of the floor you died on. I firmly believe that this mechanic is the single most important aspect of Hotline Miami; it's what ties everything else together.

Hotline Miami is a game about aggression. reaction, and memorization. You're encouraged to run through the levels as fast as you can, obliterating anyone in front of you with whatever you have on you. And if you die? So what? Hit the restart button and get right back into it! The more you play, the more you'll memorize the layout of the buildings, the paths of the bots, and the reactions those bots will have. Once you get really good at the game, you can just blow through a level without even having to stop. Even those crazy levels in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number with ridiculously large areas become bearable once you remember death just means a quick restart. You're supposed to be a train going at ridiculously high speeds, and when you get into that conductor seat, there's really nothing else like it.

This is why the game is designed the way it is. Why enemies kill you in one hit, why you kill them in one hit, why enemies don't react to the carnage around them when you're using a silenced gun, and why enemies might not react to you if you're behind an ajar door. Every single thing is designed to make you be as fast and aggressive as possible, and it all starts with that quick restart.

Without that, you just wouldn't have Hotline Miami anymore.

And this is my biggest problem with OTXO.

Since OTXO is a roguelike that forces you to start at the very beginning of the game upon death, the game can't treat death as lightly as Hotline Miami. If the player could just die in one hit and be forced to go back to the beginning, it would be a miserable experience. And so, the game tips the scales in the player's favor in a more explicit manor than Hotline Miami does. It gives you way more health than the enemies, an insta-kill melee attack, and a bullet-time-like ability. And all of these are outside of the roguelike upgrades you can get!

But that's not all! Without the quick restart, the game also can't ask players to memorize layouts or enemy patterns, that would get far too frustrating far too quickly. So, it makes up for that by relying on procedurally generating level layouts, aside from the bosses who seem to all be the same as far as I can tell.

All of these shifts combined result in a game that is basically the exact opposite of Hotline Miami in a painfully frustrating way.

The level design gets so boring and tedious after only a few runs, bullet-time feels like a crutch to overly aid the player, enemies feel random and indistinct, and worst of all, the game doesn't feel fast.

Okay sure, it does feel fast, but not Hotline Miami fast. I'm not charging through these rooms obliterating everything I see as fast as I can for the thrill of it; I'm slowing bashing down doors and killing a few random dudes by going into slow-mo and trying to go quick so I can make more money to buy upgrades that are actually a little useful. Not only does it not feel quite like Hotline Miami, it feels like its in a completely different ballpark.

Also now that I mentioned it, I have to talk about the money system which reward you more money the faster you are. Hotline Miami also had an external reward for going fast, but that was just a high score and ranking system, it only mattered to the people who wanted to get A+ rankings. That way, people who were more timid could still play the game and get through it by doing the bare minimum. But in OTXO if you aren't fast, you're never going to get past the first floor, and that's something I just find aggravating.

There's also a few other issues I have, like how the story tries to be convoluted and unclear like Hotline Miami but fails to understand why Hotline Miami did that, and how you have to spend the money used for upgrades to unlock new weapons and trinkets which I find excessively annoying, but I don't think those complaints are all that important. My big problem is with the game's refusal to understand what made Hotline Miami work all while trying to "enhance" it.

Overall, I don't think OTXO is a bad game, but I don't think its a particularly great game either. It it was trying to be its own thing and had a visual style and gameplay that didn't just invoke Hotline Miami, I might have loved it. But as it is right now, I just can't recommend it to anyone that's coming to it in hopes of getting that same rush they got from playing Hotline Miami for the first time. If you want to play something that invokes the same sense of speed while having unique gameplay, please play Katana Zero instead. Or hell, just download the free community made levels in Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. To me, there's just no real reason to play OTXO if you're a huge Hotline Miami fan like I am, and that's a damn shame.

The soundtrack is really good though.

It's good, actually.

I'm someone that got really disappointed, frustrated and baffled with Wolfenstein II, and even though this game is still not what I wanted, I was able to really enjoy it for what it is.

Playing with my bestie, and even doing some offline play, there was a good amount of fun to be had. The level design was handled by Arkane and as such we have very open ended, but not outright open world, levels, with lots of shortcuts, items to find and different encounters to get into.

Most of the game will be spent doing side content instead of the 5 story missions at hand, but I really didn't mind cause that's where the strenght is this time instead of the story. The gunplay is nearly identical to Wolfenstein II except now placed in levels that aren't frustratingly small or unfair, and while you can't dual wield as many guns, the upgrade system (which isn't actually grindy) can make any gun very reliable, especially the machinepistol and shotgun, so that it isn't missed at all.

The RPG mechanics in this game aren't actually that deep. Some enemies will not scale to your level from below so you need to get some level ups before getting to certain encounters, but you always have the option of finding an alternative route or taking them down with some more challenge. Leveling up actually doesn't take much effort, and even just running around shooting anything will net you some good XP. The guns are upgraded with currency you find or get from completing missions and you get more than enough to have a decent arsenal in the first couple of hours. What's most important is getting your skill points and weapon upgrade coins spent, you don't even have to think too much about it, just look at what you like and get it. As long as you actually upgrade whatever, enemies will not become bullet sponges and the game actually remains fairly balanced.

Something very worth noting is that everything scales for each player independently, both on their level and difficulty setting, so asides from those few encounters with enemies that have set levels, playing with someone that's not on your same level will not drag you down, this feature is actually extremely well implemented and I'm surprised it's never mentioned.

The big thing where this game fails in comparison to other Wolfenstein games as of late is story, but really not due to "cringy" protagonists (I really thought they were fine, and way less annoying than any real teenager I'm likely to find), but simply due to it being a very straightforward and short plot. That's really my only big complaint, the story could have been better, but it's not nearly as terrible as Wolfenstein II's (seriously, THAT should be your example of tone inconsistency making things hard to take seriously).

I guess I should mention the microtransactions too, and I'll just say, they're so easy to forget while you're just playing and are never in your face. Very few select items are tied to it, none of them relevant to progression. CAPCOM has been doing way worse on their singeplayer games for years, so if they can do that I just find this case very inoffensive.

I quite enjoyed playing this, both with a friend and alone, and certainly think it's worth at least a run on especially with how cheap it usually goes for on sales now. I think people are too harsh on it because it's not Wolfenstein III, but it's at least way more consistent than II with decent level design, an actual final boss, and characters that aren't pissing on New Order with their writing. I actually hope Wolfenstein III adopts the more open ended design and considers a lighter tone like found here if they're still gonna go with what II was doing. Either way, please chill, this game wasn't made to replace Wolfenstein III and it's not the future of the series like many wanted to assume it was just to be angrier at it.

Not much to say, this game is very much what you see is what you get. Yeah it borrows a lot from DOOM and others, but the good level design and satisfying guns make for a great time. There's even an included level editor and browser, so you can play lots of high quality community creations as well.

A couple major issues: the checkpoint system is too forgiving, you simply respawn without really losing anything, so I recommend playing on hard or even very hard so enemies can actually cause an inconvenience (You can switch difficulty anytime). Final few levels drag on, and theres no ending, it just teases the DLC while also having a really lame boss fight.

Despite a couple problems though this game was a really good time, not everything needs to reinvent the wheel, just being really good at rolling can be enough to be worth the time.

Unexpected gem. At first though, I was really not into it. I knew the marketing around this game being retro was misleading, but I still didn't expect that to imply I'd have to go through a dragged out tutorialized chapter full of QTEs and story beats that I doubt anyone cares for, with some of that carrying over to the rest. But due to my bestie's recommendation and assurance that it gets better, I kept going.

Once that's over you'll find the game still isn't very retro, it doesn't play like any older FPS I can think of, you sprint, reload and aim down sights. Only thing connecting this to the old times is an arcade like scoring system.

This however turns out to be a fairly unique game on its own, the scoring system is called skillshots and rewards you with points for meeting different criteria while killing enemies, doing a new skillshot granting you bonus points. This ends up encouraging you to vary up your playstyle a bit, and combined with the quick kicks and leashing, essentially a grappling hook for reeling enemies in, and the different guns all having different skillshots, combat encounters pick up the pace really quickly.

Another aspect of this game's balancing is the dropkits, you won't get too much ammo from dead enemies or pickups so you will need to rack up points both to upgrade your guns and to keep your ammo up when running low unless you're super efficient. Near the end of the game you'll probably be able to afford whatever you need, but it kept me on my toes a fair bit while building up to it as I was playing on hard difficulty.

Presentationwise, this game is surprisingly good looking. You mostly fight nasty enemies that are either mutated freaks or humans gone insane, but you also get to see really nice views of cool looking deserts, caves, ran down cities, etc. And what you see up in your face is often pretty detailed. The guns are well designed, and the music while nothing especial fits the game.

Storywise, this is just dumb. Typical revenge story with some basic character dynamics, with characters overtly swearing like this was written by an edgy teenager, making serious moments kinda hard to take seriously as overall the game isn't really going there. However this is where I should mention that I played this with the Duke Nukem Tour DLC on, and let me tell you, it makes up for any shortcoming in the story. Yes, he replaces the main character in an awkward way and nobody else re-recorded their lines to call him Duke instead of Gray, but even so this feels like such an appropiate environment to throw Duke in and being able to listen to a surprisingly good rendition of him (So, not DNF) made up for the parts of the game that annoyed me, especially the slow start.

This is overall a game that isn't quite like anything else I know of and I'm surprised that the same studio that made Painkiller, a game with some of the most average FPS gameplay I've touched, managed to create this. It is very enjoyable once you get past the first hurdle and somehow a forced inclusion of Duke Nukem just elevates it more. I recommend it to anyone that enjoys a fast action shooter. Really wish a sequel or spiritual successor happens, I want more like this, but seeing the studio's output I'm not getting my hopes up from their part.

Despite (or maybe thanks to) the smaller scale, I find this to be a considerable improvement over the original game.

Game is more straightforward in many ways, the warp system no longer requires finding lots of collectibles, dancing transformations are simplified and there's only 3 actual dungeons to go through. What makes this an improvement for me is that it simply feels more focused, I was rarely lost but still found myself exploring as opposed to lost and hoping not to explore areas that will kill me accidentally.

The game is overall easier, but I prefer that over frustratingly hard. Not that Shantae GBC is a super hard game, but its shortcomings from all the padding with long backtracking, increasingly mazey dungeons and tanky enemies being gone makes this one way easier to swallow.

Asides from all of that it doesn't do much different to being a simple platformer with some of metroid, and that was exactly what I expected. It's easy to tell that this game had a rocky development, so it's good that it functions as it should.

7 years late, but that only made this game impress me much harder. It lives up to the hype and more.

This goes beyond the core gameplay and music, it is rare for me to actually want to commit to 100%ing a game full of tidbits of side content, but secret hunting and beating challenges in this game was so fun that I did it immediately, singeplayer wise at least.

Near perfect.