Why do I feel like I'm gonna get in trouble for mentioning that I played this game? BACKGROUND:
I've heard the name "Helltaker" thrown around before but never really knew anything about it. Looked it up on Steam, saw it was free, downloaded it immediately without reading anything else. PLOT: You play as a dude who goes to hell because he wants a harem of demon girls. That's it. That's the whole story. Shallow as the story may be, the humor more than makes up for it. Each of the demon girls has a distinct personality, and you get fun dialogue when you fail to romance them or when you access the "hints" feature of the game. It's not at all meant to be deep, but it's a fun, hilarious time, and for a harem story, it doesn't really come off as weirdly creepy. PRESENTATION: The main gameplay looks like a cutesy mobile game with chibi art, while the character art for dialogue screens fall into more of an anime style with a bit of a rough sketch quality to it. The game's palette falls more into the deep reds and black, and the gloomy vibe contrasts well with the decidedly cuter visuals. When I first saw the word "harem", I was immediately concerned over the designs of the demon girls. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong about skimpy designs, but designs like that (especially those that go out of their way to show a lot) tend to fall way outside my personal tastes. But in a fun twist, the girls are dressed in dashing corporate/business outfits, and I happen to find that incredibly attractive in real life. Each girl also has design elements that convey their defining personality trait/s or roles in Hell effectively, so they all get to be unique from a visual standpoint as well. Perhaps the main highlight here is the game's exciting, upbeat music. Each track gets your blood pumping, and it oddly fits well despite the gameplay being slower paced. Idling on each level was never boring because of how great the soundtrack is. GAMEPLAY: Helltaker's gameplay is a sokoban-style puzzle game. If you don't know what that is, it's that subgenre where you try to push boxes or blocks in order to clear a path to the finish line. In this case, your end goal is to reach the demon girl at the end of each level. In Helltaker, you have a limited amount of moves to solve each puzzle. If you move after hitting zero, your character dies and you reset. It's a simple yet effective way to make every level challenging, and each level also happens to have rather perplexinglayouts to boot. There's not much in the way of unique mechanics, but the game makes excellent use of the few mechanics it does have (like the spikes or the lock box). Once you reach the demon girl, you'll get a dialogue prompt where you attempt to persuade the girl to join the harem dating sim-style. There are only two choices, so there isn't really a challenge in that respect, but picking the wrong answer results in some funny dialogue from the girl. The game also has a "hints" system that you can access at any time, but it doesn't really give you anything substantial in terms of how to solve the puzzle. You mostly check it out for the funny dialogue. The game's final level is completely out of left field, as it's instead a reaction-based boss fight where you have to avoid attacks with the right timing. It's not that hard (I didn't think so, anyway), and I liked the idea, but I can see some players souring on this game after being caught off guard by how different (and tough) it is. Unfortunately, this game is dreadfully short, having only ten levels that I beat in less than two hours. It would have been cool if they made a full game with a ton of levels and all sorts of mechanics, but I appreciated the short and sweet nature of Helltaker. If you'd rather just see how the story plays out, you can actually just skip most of the levels. I'm not sure why anyone would do that, but hey, the option exists. VERDICT: Helltaker is a quick game with a humorous story, solid puzzle gameplay, delightful art style, funny (and cute) characters, and fantastic music. There's really not much I can hold against it other than its short length, but even that works in favor of its simple story. Even with the brief time I spent playing, the game left a great impression on me, and I wouldn't be opposed to replaying it for the sake of replaying it. You don't have to guess if this game is for you, because it is completely free to play. No strings attached, no microtransactions, just play the entire game for free. Go see if it's for you: Helltaker on Steam (steampowered.com) And in case anyone asks: Pandemonica is my favorite. - end -
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June 2024
Derryck
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