Reviews - Gyumaou

One, the game claims to be a Metroidvania. I may have seen a metroidvania or two come out through the years and sure they did not look like this here. Nope, this is a straight up 3D puzzle platformer with some shooter elements tossed in.

First of all, the game is far from finished. Not a major criticism on its own but bears mention. In a perfect world most of the criticisms would be resolved by improving the game. Given the track record so far though I would not expect much in this case.

Visually the approach is resembling of Borderlands or other cell-shaded games but with much exaggerated black edges which makes everything look jagged and out of place. Additionally levels are largely composed of large flat surfaces in a mostly two-tone colour composition. Not the most exciting environments there, though it could somehow be argued this was a conscious choice.

Complementing visuals is the rather blank sound design -- a total of what feels like 4 looping tracks and a minimal range of sound effects. Guns were treated a little better and don't sound half bad if you're not shooting too much.

Gameplay relies mostly on a gimmick of taking control of synthetic bodies strewn around the level to solve puzzles. And then there's some basic shooting. While the main gimmick is ok and some puzzles can be interesting it does get rather samey, the shooter elements do not help in this regard. Speaking of shooting - gunplay just doesn't feel all that satisfying. Sure, it's not CoD or ArmA but a good weighty feel to the shots would go a long way to help. In terms of controls a little tightening of inputs would not go amiss, and tweaks to mouse aiming would help too as both feel somewhat shaky. Which is not very helpful in either a 3D puzzler or shooter.

Now Story -- well, this is one thing I cannot talk much about, as there is hardly any. "Go fix the mess and save the world" seems to be the premise, and there's little text or interactions to flesh this out. Then again, unfinished game. Half the levels are not even in. So this could go either way.

To top off the cake is the dev's totally unprofessional way of interacting with the community. The dev claims to be open and response to feedback and involving the community in the development process (just check the Early Access Steam page claims). That's nice, however during the past months a lot of negative or critical comments and reviews got removed and authors branded as 'haters'. To be fair though, the dev's on the ball when it comes to bug reports and promising fixes (unsure yet about delivering) so maybe that was just a phase.