The Basics
You are the Badass Hero. You run, jump, shoot, slice, explode, and air dash your way through a series of dynamically arranged rooms filled with deadly enemies and obstacles. Everything is presented in a distinct comic book fashion, with levels taking place within the pages, which you navigate by entering the myriad rooms like reading panels. Additionally, effects are given text blurbs, characters get word bubbles, and items are warped in via stray comic panels.
The Story & Flow
There is little to say here in terms of narrative structure. The Badass Hero goes to battle against various supernatural and terrestrial forces, both to save the world and recover powers that were lost in some previous event. As of now, there are two episodes to play; the first is a deep-jungle adventure with lots of traps and skeletons throwing fireballs at you, and the second involves a time travel trip to World War 2 to stop Nazis from winning by way of future tech. As a whole, it seems to be more of a celebration of tropes, rather than offering any insight to or deconstruction of the genre. This isn't the sort of game that needs a rousing, emotional thread to pull you through.
As you fight your way through the comic pages, enemies drop ink, which is used as both experience points and currency for shops. Each kill adds to a combo meter, increasing the amount of ink that gets dropped while also providing other benefits after unlocking them, like extra health pickups and damage mitigation. On the topic of upgrades, each time you die your collected ink is tallied which is added to your total player level. Each level adds skill points that are used to unlock those upgrades, which slowly adds power to your hero in subsequent playthroughs. This constitutes the core gameplay loop; get as far as you can, collect ink, die, upgrade your hero, restart.
As the game is currently in an Early Access state, many features are incomplete and it is impossible to accurately describe them, since everything is subject to change. A major problem I hope they fix is how stingy health is; you'll take a lot of damage from various sources and rarely ever find ways to restore health in meaningful ways. It will certainly be a challenge to get past the first few stages, let alone complete the entire chapter.
Graphics & Sound
There is clearly a lot of care put into the various environments and characters. Each enemy is unique and easily identifiable, and most have more powerful versions as levels progress. All the effects are consistent with graphic novel elements. You will rarely be confused as to what something does or get hit by a projectile you couldn't see.
One thing I can say against the game is the cheap-looking animation. Characters only have a minimum amount of frames to represent actions like an attack or casting a spell. This is less of an issue when looking at the player character, but enemies can be very difficult to avoid with such a system.
Sound effects are very punchy and meaty, accurately describing the carnage that unfolds. While the music doesn't sound as though it is in a final state, it has a nice dynamic structure that builds when your combo meter reaches higher levels. As a whole, the sounds are all deeply satisfying.
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