I expected the extremely fun and frantic gameplay when I bought this, but the shockingly compelling homoerotic story and great VA work was a bonus.

Imagine hotline miami in 3d and add a story about a retired special agent. Movement feels good, melee and shoots have impact and cutscenes are done in a minimalistic but creative way

This is for you low-skill gamers out there.

Do you look at difficult games like this and say Elden Ring or even something like Blasphemous and go "I wish they made those for me..." This one.... kinda is almost like a high-skill game for low-skill gamers. Why?

Everything makes you FEEL like a badass. The fact that the levels are so quick you spend so much more time failing than you do succeeding but...your brain like forgets all of your failure. You just keep going. Everything feels so smooth and so fun and you just keep ripping through bad guys. It makes failure fun in a way because you just get another crack at the bad guys you want to keep killing. It makes us low-skill gamers feel like we're doing really tough maneuvers when in reality its all about quickness and steady progress via repetition. Theres no procedural or rogue-like development here you just are what you are, shaving off seconds from a hand crafted level built to perfection. The way gaming used to be. But with all the cool visuals, tactile responsiveness, and music you want from a hot new title.

TLDR: Theres lots of indy action titles that come out every year but theres been a handful last decade or so that stood out: Hades, Ultrakill, Risk of Rain 1 and 2, etc... this belongs with that conversation. A++