This is one of the worst games I have ever played.

I really didn't expect much of this game. I was told actually that I shouldn't play this game, that I should try Rearmed 2, but that's not on PC, so I may as well try this game.

This is going to be a bit more incensed than my usual reviews because this game made me angrier than any game I have played in recent memory, to the point where I simply hit ALT+F4 and quit out0 I was so mad.

Bionic Commando Rearmed is a giant pile of garbage. It has a terrible upgrades system for your weapons, none of which you know anything about, it doesn't tell you what's in each stage, it doesn't even tell you really what weapons are expected to do, it doesn't even tell you, how many lives you have at any given time, it gives the player ZERO information, and the only reason you would actually understand even how to play this game in the first place and how you are meant to progress, is because you played Bionic Commando... ON THE NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM AKA THE NES AKA THE FAMICOM!

LIKE SERIOUSLY??? YOU GUYS DECIDED TO ENTIRELY 100% RELY ON PLAYERS HAVING PLAYED AND UNDERSTOOD WHAT THE FIRST GAME IS, AS IN A GAME THAT CAME OUT ABOUT 40 YEARS AGO AT THIS POINT??? YOU COULD SPARE THE TIME TO DO CRAPPY TUTORIALS ON HOW TO LITERALLY USE YOUR ARM WHICH THE GAME SHOULD BE TEACHING YOU VIA THE LEVEL DESIGN, BUT YOU COULDN'T LITERALLY TELL PLAYERS "HEY YOU GET A WEAPON AT THE END OF EVERY LEVEL AND LOOK OUT FOR THE UPGRADES YOU CAN FIND ONCE IN A WHILE SECRETLY HIDDEN IN STAGES" OR WHATEVER???

HOW ABOUT A MAP, OR A MINIMAP, OR ANYTHING?!? NO!? OH WELL THAT'S FINE, I GUESS I BETTER LOOK UP A GUIDE THEN - AKA I HAVE TO USE EXTERNAL SOURCES TO LEARN THINGS ABOUT THE GAME I AM TRYING TO PLAY BECAUSE IT JUST WON'T TELL ME ***ANYTHING***!!!

I mean, sure the game came out in 2008, not 2025 when I am writing this review, but... that's still 2008. This is clearly a pretty low budget title, but I don't care, it's here on the Steam store and I'm gonna rip it apart for wasting my time and money.

But anyway, I think this just goes to show, and set the stage here, for the design decisions of the people who made this game: they HAD ABSOLUTELY no idea WHAT they were doing. I think they even have admitted this. There are videos on YouTube, speedruns done by the developers of this game where they're like, "yeah uh well Capcom approached us and uhh well we were like sure and uhh yeah" and that's like the level of commentary they have for their own game.

Now, I wanted to be fair to this game, really. I thought, well hey, it's probably not going to DESTROY me with greatness, no, I might think it's like, OK, but instead, I got this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mess.

So let's talk about like what's so terrible about the game. So first up, the game has a lives system. This is just... not exactly FUN, to deal with, really. But coupled with the absolutely hostile level design, clearly designed with no oversight or really anyone telling the level designer what is good and what is bad and so on? We ended up with this, a Bionic Commando game where you spend a very surprising amount of the game not grappling things or climbing things or whatever.

An example of what I mean is, the game is just full of corridors where it's like, you could swing if you really want to put in the effort to time your grapples perfectly, but it doesn't really help, and it's not fun to do because you can't get very big swings going. There are several corridors where, the room is just full of enemies and any one of them hitting you would interrupt your swing, they're like gauntlets, you just have to run through on your feet spamming the shoot button.

Then the last couple levels just go ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nuts with rooms where you aren't doing any grappling at all, you're just like VERY SLOWLY waiting in front of a lightning wall or something so you can wait so you can wait for the next one to go down so you can pass that lightning wall and oh my god I want to have DIED.

I cannot understand how they were like, yes, let's copy the Oddworld games, let's make it so you aren't shooting or grappling like a Bionic Commando game should do, instead let's have you dodge stage hazards like crushers, (mincers in Abe's Oddysee), gas clouds, and lightning walls (literally a lightning wall in Abe's Oddysee). I just wish I could swear more to show just how angry I am at all this. It's not fun.

I could just repeat that for an entire paragraph, maybe I should, because that's the bulk of my feedback here. "It isn't fun."

I just was thinking this CONSTANTLY throughout THE ENTIRE GAME, when I wasn't thinking, oh hey I am extremely angry right now. I am genuinely furious, because of what this game is putting me through.

Oh and the best part is, like Contra actually kind of, you basically can never tell what's coming up until it scrolls on screen, at which point it usually is one of the incredibly annoying spread shot turrets that just bathe the entire screen in bullets and you generally don't have an answer except, hoping the 'bouncy shot gun' fires up at it, or maybe the ceiling is low enough for you to grapple to it.

The game is also FULL of bottomless pits, because of course, gotta have those in there. There are many many many rooms in this game, probably most of them, where it's like you're just trying to platform without a jump button, over an endless abyss, so if you ever make ONE mistake, you usually die. Mistimed a grapple even slightly? Well, that was your one shot, you die. There's no handholds, there's no safety platforms (except once in a while), nothing.

Some of the actual normal levels are completely unreasonable, like it's honestly stunning what they expect you to even do, sometimes it's not even apparent what they want you to do to, you're just left going well, if I grapple onto that thing, maybe something will make sense, and sometimes it does, and sometimes you're just left like... what do you even WANT from me here? It feels like there's much less freedom in your grapples and the way you explore levels.

By the way, I am fully aware that since this is something of a remake SOME of these levels are kind of based on the original levels from the NES game. MANY of them however are completely original, and they are usually the worst ones. I know one screen in particular where the entire room is basically just kaizo blocks, that room was patched out of the XBLA release, because it was so awful to go through.

I should mention too this game actually has 'challenge rooms' so you can 'challenge' yourself with the mostly pretty unpleasant controls and the glitchy, buggy grappling mechanics that work except when they don't. Great. Just great. You can even find these as rewards for exploring optional areas in levels, but... like... a big problem there is, I don't know what I am going to be rewarded with, when I am exploring. And if I find like an item that makes my weapons stronger, I am happy! If I find a CHALLENGE ROOM, I get very very very angry. Like, I wasted my time, and my lives getting here probably, FOR THIS?

By the way, you may notice I have nothing to say about the story, or dialogue. It's bad. The game doesn't seem too invested in it, so I'm sure not going to get invested. The dialogue is atrocious, high-school grade trash. The writer thinks he's funny. I wasn't laughing.

It's not worth the frustration. SKIP THIS GAME. DO NOT PLAY IT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Good game