Demanding and Outstanding
Fights in BUTCHER regularly involve being outnumbered by enemies that can deal tons of damage in a single hit (if not kill you outright). Ammo, while plentiful, is just a little bit tighter than what many 2D shooter players are used to. Health and armor pickups are hard earned, and the highest difficulties take them out altogether, demanding a near-perfect playthrough on each level. And when you inevitably get blown into chunks of meat and steel, you're sent back to the start of the level - no checkpoints, no quicksaves. As developers Transhuman Design is quick to remind players, BUTCHERis hard.
And it's true. BUTCHER's dynamics are not the same as typical shooters like Contra, Metal Slug, or even Crack Dot Com's Abuse, BUTCHER's closest ancestor. Enemies take aim as soon as they can see you, and their fast bullets and homing rockets require quick reflexes to dodge into and out of cover. The 360 degree mouse aiming demands precision that most 2D shooters don't, giving a playstyle closer to something like Quake (which also fits the trickjumping and speedrunning that the game offers, along with the oppressively monochrome, ultraviolent atmosphere). Your NES-era shooter skills will come up a bit short for what this game asks for.
But I think it's important to also state that BUTCHER is, at its core, fair. Enemies warn you when they're about to fire, and they can't target you if you can't see them. If you hit an enemy but don't manage to kill them, they get stunned long enough for you to either finish them off or get behind cover before they shoot back. There is always enough ammo to do your job, and your chainsaw with infinite gas isn't there for nothing. The AI is predictable, the levels are learnable, and the difficulty is absolutely possible.
Interestingly, these mechanics make BUTCHER feel like a 2D crossbreed of Quake and Time Crisis, creating a tight and tense game of jumping, ducking, and slaughtering that grabbed me from the moment I filled a man with enough buckshot to make him writhe helplessly on the floor and gurgle on his own blood before slicing into his screaming partner until his intestines roped out of him like a mass of unraveling, dripping meat.
It's fun.