Hell Yeah!!!
I bought this game for a decent price of €6.49 during the Halloween sale on steam. I knew nothing of the game's plot or art style or even what genre it was. However when I watched the introduction and saw the main protagonist getting frisky with a rubber ducky in the bathtub, I knew I was in for something I had never experienced before.
This game is crazy, like this-game-should-be-in-an-asylum levels of crazy. It's got a crazy premise, it has crazy characters and even an crazier art style.
You play as a dead rabbit who goes by Ash, who is the heir to the throne of Hell, who has been the unfortunate victim of a downright invasion of privacy and had photos of his alone time with his ducky leaked on to the Hellternet. Over 100 monsters have seen these photos and Ash embarks on a quest of revenge to murder every living monster who has seem them.
The gameplay can be described as a 2D twin stick shooter with platforming elements. Ash has to dodge spikes and various other obstacles from the Video Game encyclopedia. This may seem fairly ordinary, however there is one gameplay element that separates it from all others. Upon successfully defeating a monster (such as a piece of shit with a chiansaw) the game requires with to complete a mini game to kill him. These games include mashing the various buttons it tells you to, answering questions, trying to collect falling stars or playing rhythm games such as Guitar Hero or the ocarina from Ocarina of Time.
This brings me to my next point, which is the highly referential nature of this game to almost every part of pop culture it can possibly manage. Catchy pop songs, DragonBall Z, 8 bit RPG's - almost everything and more is covered in this game. However due to my extremely sheltered childhood (and my insane levels of European-ness) I was not able to "get" most of it, so I cannot offer advice on its contribution to the game.
The controls seem floaty and were often the cause of my death as Ash kept falling on a narrow ledge into spikes (which mean instant death. Dying in this game makes you angry just like any other platformer would.
In summary, the plot offers little more than giving you a reason to murder 100 monsters . However the ride this game takes you along the way is quite enjoyable , albeit repetitive (minigames are repeated up to 4 times with animations that last up to 10-12 seconds). Its repetitiveness and floaty controls can annoy even the most patient of people, but a fun time can be had for all.
