I will be upfront and say I played on Hard (didn't know there was a higher difficulty hidden away until after) so some of my thoughts might be skewed because of that.

The gameplay and combat felt fresh but turned sour and stale very quickly. I understand it's a throwback to shooters of old, but that shouldn't mean it has to play exactly like them. Many encounters I found myself either holding the S key while firing away or just circle strafing and chipping away at the monster's health.

There was a chance missed here to use the colors inherent in both the enemies and the weapons to inflict extra (or less) damage based on those 'elements.' Instead it felt often like 'use whatever weapon you have the most mana (ammo) for,' which never felt that great. I'm sure there is targeted limb/head damage but it truly didn't feel like it made much of a difference.

Am glad I stuck it out though as some of the later levels have such neat platforming segments and honestly some very cool boss fights. The final boss alone was very well done.

With so many more 'boomer shooters' in my steam library I'm going to dive into them and see if it's this game that's a one-off or if the genre maybe just isn't my cup of tea.