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There's a lot of VR fighting games out there, but I haven't played something quite like Underdogs. It's a physics-based roguelite brawler where you immerse yourself in the 'Rilla, a precariously constructed fighting machine designed to fight gladiatoral battles in the arenas of the seedy underbelly of a bleak cyberpunk city. It's a brutal future and in the wise words of Infinite: "Only one master's going straight to the top.".
That's the premise of the game, but how does it actually feel to play?
In Underdogs, your health is represented by three hit locations: Your arms and your cockpit/bubble. Damage is separate for each location. For example, a hit to the left arm will only damage the left arm. If a hit location loses all of its hitpoints, it breaks. In the case of an arm, it falls off and leaves you with half the "firepower" and mobility; if you lose all hitpoints for the cockpit, you just die. Because damage to these locations is separate, it is possible and usually preferable to prevent damage to weaker parts by letting healthier parts take the hit instead.
The player's primary and only means of controlling the mech are to use your arms and the trigger on your controllers. The 'Rilla is like a giant metal pugilist that skipped leg day too many times, and can only move around by dragging itself around with its hefty arms. This might sound clunky at first, but it's actually very intuitive. The benefit to this kind of control scheme is that it completely eliminates the disconnect that you may have when controlling your character's lower body with a stick or trackpad, but the upper body movement with physical motions, as tends to be the case for most VR fighting games. Gripping the floor with both hands and lurching forwards into an enemy to knock them away feels better than I imagine simply pushing a stick forwards would.
The thing is, your arms are also your primary means of attacking enemies, so to throw a punch or grab an enemy means sacrificing some of your mobility in the process, making you more vulnerable to incoming attacks. You're seldom fighting just one enemy in the arena, so keeping on the move and throwing opportunistic jabs and hooks when an opening presents itself is a good idea. That said, enemies can be picked up and thrown around if you have fingers equipped on your hand, either into traps or at other enemies; huge punches can send something flying across the entire arena; enemies can be launched into the air with ramming maneuvers; there are options for the player to create space to isolate enemies and pummel them to scrap.
Some strategy is required when dealing with your opponents however, almost all of which are robot animals, much like the 'Rilla itself. Junkdogs leap at you from a distance or go gremlin mode up close, and they're not too hard to dispose of, but some of them have armor or spikes that hurt you if you happen to hit them. The alpha dog will latch onto you with its chainsaw jaws if you try to hit it when it's in its 'Turbo Mode', so either waiting until it's overheated or punting another enemy into its mouth and attacking it while it's occupied will make them more manageable. There are some other enemy types that you'll run into, but the gist is to respect what you're going up against and to play around their strengths and capitalize on their weaknesses. It's brutal fun, but never mindless.
After each fight, the player is rewarded with fight money and equipment to upgrade their mech, the health state of the 'Rilla is recorded (As it's persistent.), and they're sent to the overworld map mini-game. It plays out a bit like a "choose your adventure" style of game, where you come to a crossroads and have to choose whether to go down path A or path B. Do you want to visit a trader or repairman to fix up the mech, or do you want to try your luck at finding some equipment or maybe make some money? When the day is done, it's time to pick your patron and fight again. Each patron is a character you can visit on the overworld map, and fighting for them incurs a specific challenge and offers you specific rewards if you manage to win. Fighting for your patron also increases your reputation with them, which could mean a discount on their services, better repair quality, and so on. It's pretty simple, but it can add some flavor and tension when you go through two or three whole nights without repairs, and you have to be extra careful in the ring.
When all of this comes together, it's a blast to play. The sound design is excellent, and the high pitched clank of your fist crashing into the face hitbox of an enemy feels entirely appropriate and earned when you send them careering into a wall with a perfectly aimed punch. There's a good bit of equipment in the game, and I've only just about managed to unlock a third of it so far, if you really needed an incentive to replay the game.
Underdogs is an easy recommend for me, even at full price, and I'm very interested to see how this game develops over future updates. I'd love to write more about it, were it not for the character limit on Steam reviews, but to summarize: It's really, really fun.