This is the game everyone was bitching about? Never change guys, you're always good for a hearty laugh.
Just got through the first few stages and I'm really happy with my purchase. The performance can be pretty shit, but the gameplay is tight, the universe is wacky and I'm honestly looking forward to playing more. I'll dive into the multiplayer after I finish up the campaign.
Until then, I see many drum solos and cigarette breaks in my future.
Yeah, like, I understand why people had such bad impressions, but having just completed the campaign last night, I have to say that by far the biggest offenders are the tech issues and poor art direction. Although the game looks great at times, Wii U can look and perform so much better overall.
Having said that, my impression of the game is incredibly positive overall. Here's my little mini-review.
playtime:
Campaign (approx 10 hours, time didn't upload to leaderboards)
Multiplayer (12 hours so far)
Campaign
+ Thoroughly fun game
+ Unique game that feels like a complete fusion of Character action and military shooter
+ Fun and competent melee combat, with an awesome variety of finishers
+ Excellent controls make switching between firearms and melee combat a breeze, and has surprisingly easy to use platforming and wall climbing
+ Unique gameplay setup constantly forces players to rethink what they know about shooters and action games, forcing them to think outside the box and conjure up unique strategies
+ Several excellent boss fights that challenge in that Itagaki tense but fair way
+ Very good pacing throughout the campaign
+ Very well balanced, fair but constantly challenging campaign with only a couple problematic difficulty spikes
+ An entertaining story that paints Ivan as quite a likeable badass character with a heart, and offers B-movie level entertainment value at most times
+ Creative level design layouts that offer great verticality due to wall-running/climbing mechanic and smooth platforming
+ Gameplay mixes things up to really good effect, often giving the player new and unexpected gameplay scenarios (such as using Ivan's infared glasses to detect bombs, a vehicle section, turret sections)
+ Nice mix of weapons, always new firearms or melee weapons scattered around to play with, keeping things fresh and interesting.
- Tech difficulties all over the place make the game perform like a borderline launch-era 3rd party port, as opposed to the polish one would expect from a Nintendo exclusive
- Framerate issues rear thier head more than one would like, but thankfully only impede on gameplay in a generally minor way
- Tons of unfortunately slow loading textures leave the game looking worse than it should.
- Overall poor art direction that doesn't quite gel, and at times looks downright awful
- Poor lighting usually leaves environments feeling drab except in several standout scenarios
- Gunplay feels cheap, enemies always explode into poor looking gibs, SFX make guns feels like cheap toys, poor enemy hit reactions and animation
- While enemies do their job very well, poor implementation of behavior and bugs leave them looking stupid on an almost constant basis
- A couple of the 'different' enemies look and act completely dumb, and aren't even that fun to fight, outside of a couple cool boss fights
- Some character models look downright ugly, potentially due to poor lighting and overdone normal/parralax mapping
- The story never quite comes together into an impactful experience, and key characters are underdeveloped and underexposed.
- While generally entertaining, some cinematics and story scenarios come off as downright dumb
Multplayer
+ Just downright fun to play
+ Mix of firearms and swordplay, platforming and wall-climbing gives players unique gameplay scenarios and forces them to rethink encounters, and offers a new feel of multiplayer that I didn't expect to work so good
+ Awesome level-design on huge levels that offer lots of cool and creative flourishes due to generous platforming and wall-climbing possibilities. Climbing high on the mountains of the grand Canyon, hiding throughout Texas big highlights in a very consistent and great set of levels
+ Much more solid visual and framerate performance in MP. The game looks quite good here, all things considered
+ Excellent melee combat mechanics always give players a fighting chance, and make close encounters awesome to behold as you dodge, evade, combo, or unexpectedly blow enemies sky high
+ Melee combat is an unexpectedly balanced strategy for play due to nice combat movement speed and great platforming possibilities
+ Great variety of multiplayer playlists and game modes. So far, chickens and clan/base-building and base-defense/raids being very creative highlights
+ Lots of hilarious and often cool costumes to unlock and equip your character with such as cat heads, samurai helmets, demonic pieces, cool military gear etc.
+ Fair progression system that gives players enough currency to get the items they need and counter any pay-to-win worry
+ A very good set of weapons, weapon items, and items to collect and equip keep players addicted and constantly playing
- Weird slow aiming deadzone that unexpectedly causes accelerated turning when right stick is pressed a certain arbitrary degree, making aiming with guns way harder than it should be
- Unexpected deaths on one stage due to the game not always being all that clear about where water is. Mostly a problem since the game moves so fast and teaches you to bounce around like a Ninja on most other levels.
- Small community of gamers that may dissipate in an unfortunately short amount of time, partly due to Nintendo trying to burry and disown this game.
- Progression is generally pretty slow, but incredibly generous special events (5x XP bonus for playing chickens or playing new map) keep things at a good pace
+/- The game's multiplayer was obviously design as a free-to-play title, and will probably shine as one on PC. On one hand, the slow way that the game doles out Golden eggs (the game's slowly earned special currency) is an indicator of this, but on the other hand, the game offers so many unlockables, clothing, and item variety that I think it comes off more as a positive overall
Overall - SP 6/10
Overall MP - 8/10
Overall Score 7/10