Well, now that I’ve played all the Twitch Prime games I was really interested in, I’ll just pick random ones to play until my trial runs out (I know they say I’ll get to keep the games after I cancel, but better safe than sorry).

This is a top-down beat ‘em up. The core of the game is centered around whittling down the health bars of waves of enemies until the path forward unlocks, but there is a decent amount of variation to the game-play to keep it from being too repetitive, like simplistic platforming segments or a series of empty rooms where you need to solve riddles or go on a switch hunt.

I’ve never been a big fan of beat ‘em ups (if you’re wondering how I differentiate between them and hack ‘n’ slash games, it’s a combination of pace-of-play and player-mobility), but this game bothers me right out of the gate with how it handles its playable characters. First, basic mechanics are split between the characters: only one character can jump and climb; only one character can push blocks; heck, only one character can dash! The only character here that has any excuse to be separate is the one with the gun (everyone else has short-ranged attacks that basically function the same). What’s even more annoying is that you can only cycle through the characters in one direction, even though the character-swap button is LB. What’s RB used for, then? Well, not long after the first boss, you get exactly one more character to join your party, and this is who you switch to when you push RB (push LB to switch back to the main cast). To be fair, this character has more of an excuse to be a separate entity from your party: he can go through locked doors, enter portals, and can walk on a specific type of platform that none of the other characters can. Plus, this character is on the map separate from the main cast, and switching back and forth between the two characters while they’re at two different locations is used to solve certain switch hunts and riddles.

But the game isn’t done being annoying yet. Not long into the game, you get the ability to see ghosts; push RT to toggle the effect. Here’s the thing: at no point in the game is there any reason for you to toggle the effect off; not only are most of the enemies ghosts, but there’s also occasionally ghost writing on the scenery, some of which tell you the solution to the current riddle. There’s never a point in the game where, say, you need to turn the effect off because of a ghost blocking your ability to see where real platforms are or anything, so the game could’ve cut out this effect entirely, moved RB’s effect to RT, then used RB to let the player cycle between players in the other direction. Oh, and if you’re wondering what LT is used for, it’s precision aiming, which is only really useful when playing as the gun character.

However, the most annoying part of the game is the stamina bar. The only action that doesn’t deplete it is walking. Did you dash out of the way of an attack? Your stamina went down. Did you jump? Your stamina went down. Did you attack an enemy? Your stamina went down. If your stamina bar depletes completely, you’re stunned for a second, giving any nearby enemies plenty of time to counterattack. Honestly, the only thing that makes the waves of enemies at the end of the game more threatening than the waves of enemies at the beginning of the game is that there’s so many that you’re bound to run out of stamina at some point just by trying to progress.

Even if you set all that aside, the game is just kinda dull. There isn’t much variation with the enemies you fight (mostly just short-range attackers that pose little threat, long-range attackers, and enemies that charge at you and get stunned after attacking), and the platforming doesn’t really evolve past disappearing platforms. Heck, one of the first bosses is just more enemy waves, then the game stops and makes you play a round of Simon. Maybe the game could have combined fighting enemies with platforming, adding variety without introducing anything new, but that would’ve…I can’t even think of anything snarky to say. Beyond that, there’s just some misc. mini-games to indicate chapter transitions: one is a runner where you move up and down to avoid objects, one is a button masher where you literally just repeatedly press the button that shows up on screen, and another is reminiscent of SHMUPS where you have to dodge bullet patterns until the time runs out; all of these only show up once for a minute or so. There’s one segment reminiscent of adventure games since you’re literally just going back and forth talking to various NPCs until you finally have the information you need. There’s one segment that’s just a few platforming challenges disguised as block-pushing riddles (you have to get one character to reach the area with the solution, then have the other character push the blocks).

Despite the majority of the game being really easy and kinda dull, the semi-final boss is a huge difficulty spike. First, it’s the only part of the game that combines platforming with other hazards: segments of the arena sink into lava and you have to jump across the remaining segments to avoid projectiles. However, the game goes overboard with its hazards: if you touch a platform, it catches fire after a second, so you need to be jumping back and forth across the platforms constantly. During the first phase (where it’s just the standard projectiles), this is perfectly fine, but the second phase has missiles fall onto most of the platforms, so you have to find and reach a safe platform quickly (all while the platforms keep catching on fire behind you). Then, the boss shoots lasers and starts spinning the lasers around, so if you were running away from the flames in the wrong direction, you’re screwed. I finally got past this boss when I figured out that there’s a programming-oversight that causes the flames not to appear if you’re standing on the very edge of the platform; without those flames, the difficulty of the boss is more in-line with the rest of the game, and actually pretty fun.

Unfortunately, the fun factor goes back down for the final boss, though. The first phase is yet another “waves of generic enemies,” then the second phase has attacks that move too fast for you to dodge them and counterattack effectively (you might get one hit in for every ~20 seconds of attacks, and the boss takes about the same number of hits to kill). Trying to fight the boss without taking hits is incredibly tedious, so I just spammed attacks and healing items at this point. The final phase of the boss only has one attack where it charges at you; you might be able to avoid it if you’re constantly moving, but the only way to win is to bait the boss into charging into crystals scattered around the arena (not that you’d know that at first), so I just kept taking hits and using healing items.

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this game. Its variation is exclusive to its scattershot approach to genres, having a bit of everything rather than focusing on one and making it good. It might be okay at first if you enjoy beat ‘em ups, but the lack of any evolution in its level design combined with the spike in tedium and difficulty at the end will more than likely sour your experience, too.