Wanted: Dead Review (Gallows)
EDIT: After putting 20 more hours into the game I can confidently say I stand by this review. I am now much better at combat and I am still not tired of watching the different ways I can execute people. My only things I would like to see implemented is cloud saving, steam deck verified and not being able to change difficulty when doing new game+ mode while having all abilities saving just makes it feels pointless. I do hope some DLC or a sequel are possible.
_________________________________
I have never played Ninja Gaiden. I was pretty young when that game was being talked about a lot. I watched a friend play it and watching him redo the same part of a mission for hours, just to do the exact same thing minutes later and to just rinse and repeat the process not only seemed tedious and boring but absolutely asinine. I would wonder how people enjoyed games like that. I'm an eye candy, Micheal Bay, Grand Theft Auto V kinda guy...
You're probably wondering. "okay, this moron accidentally left a positive instead of a negative review". The thing is. The market now is filled with remasters, remakes, sequels, trilogies, spin off, etc. That is has become not only redundant, stale, and boring but out right disgusting. The industry has become a breeding ground for game passes, loot crates, microtransactions, season passes and whatever else and it's not entirely these devs/publishers fault because we keep buying it and saying thank you.
With all that said. This. Is. A. Good. Game.
I knew nothing about this game other than seeing it pop up in the steam market place last night. I watched the trailer and was immediately drawn in. The characters, the gore, the combat, the cringe dialog, off the wall story, the Japanese style mini games, the aesthetics, everything. Everything screamed this is my type of game. So when I looked up the reviews I was completely thrown off by what I was reading. It wasn't just performance. People are bashing on this game in every way possible. With a price tag of $60 I was obviously concerned but thanks to Steams generous refund system I figured I would try it and all I can say is I am glad I did.
I thought this game was going to be your typical hack and slash game but I was far wrong. I was immediately thrown back to the days of watching my friend play Ninja Gaiden as that is identically what this game is. Rather than feeling thrown off like I did when I was a kid, I found a sense of accomplishment after finally beating a segment in the game by learning when to parry, dodge, block, shoot, run, heal, etc.. Even the checkpoint system people are complaining about is not that big a deal to me. It's not as frequent as most games now a days but I see it as more practice. Right now, I am not happy with my current abilities as I am still trying to get used to the controls and do more than just use my hand gun, dodge and attack. Until I am able to pull off some of these crazy combos I've seen others do, I don't mind 10-20 minutes between checkpoints.
Performance for me is fine. I get 60 FPS on a 6 year old computer. If you were a fan of those mid/late 2000 games like WET, Velvet Assassin, Wanted: Weapons of Fate and you like the challenges and difficulty that Ninja Gaiden and Souls games bring than I would definitely recommend this game, Even at $60 there is so much replay value here.
9.5/10