I hadn't played this game in FOREVER. I bought it years ago on release played up to Dreadnought 4th's stage/final boss fight, and stopped playing it for whatever reason. I'm a bit older now, and I don't want to leave a game hanging on the cusp of completion, so I decided I would finish it at the very least.

I load into Dreadnought Phase 4, start making my way through the stage aaaaand I die; to a laser cannon enemy that multi-hit me to death. Ok. That's fine. I haven't touched this game in years, so I can hardly blame it for a handful of deaths. If anything, that's par for the course if I want to get back into the swing of things. So I make my way through the level and I die a number of times of along the way. I start getting frustrated, but again, it's mostly on me for being out of the loop and being too stubborn to start fresh from the beginning. So I take my punishment all the way to the end of the level.

I finally get to the boss after a brief cutscene, and before I even have time to realize that the cutscene is over and fight is happening, I get rammed by the final boss's first phase (his spaceship) which puts me in a soft stunlock as the ship then proceeds to fire off a barrage of missiles and plasma machine-guns that fire over a dozen projectiles.

After dying to that a number of times before prevailing, the boss goes into his second phase, a Mech Suit. He starts flying around constantly and his shots at you are almost pinpoint accurate. Sometimes he's right on top of you, so there's no way to dodge him. You either eat the shot or you "parry" it and get away. But even if you parry, you have to be prepared for any attack that may follow, such as his little pinball attack, or him dashing on the ground which leaves a flame trail that can damage you after the fact, or him charging up to unleash an explosive barrage of bullets in all directions which can instakill you if you're too close to him. It may be tedious, but it's beatable.

Then the boss goes into his final phase: Just him but with a lunging knife attack that somehow removes a huge portion of your health. Now, considering everything that he does in the previous two phases, it doesn't sound that bad. But because I'm not sure when a new phase begins and the last one ends (because cutscenes in-between them don't have clear cuts), I eat that first knife attack and lose a huge chuck of my health. Even worse is that he has a grab attack that looks exactly like his lunging knife attack except that the grab is homing and can actually catch you in the air. So you could attempt to read this 50/50 as the knife attack and end up getting tossed to the other side of the stage in a flash like a ragdoll. Now, the damage of the grab is negligible, but because movement is so slippery, any flowing attack or projectile coming your way afterwards can become a hassle to dodge because you're fighting the controls and the boss at the same time.

You CAN dodge it. It's DOABLE; I've DONE it. Parried it, whatever. It CAN work. The GAME can work. But SOMETIMES, it doesn't. Sometimes, you just have to eat a combo and lose a chunk of HP. Sometimes, off-screen attacks don't make the sound that they should, so you don't know when they're coming (aside from a warning sign, if it has them). Sometimes, you can breeze through an open stage, and then die 15 times to the boss because the game expects you to have the same freedom and range of movement in a confined box.

After my 15th death (overall; not just the final boss), I started to realize why I haven't played this game in so long:

I hate it.

Ok, maybe i'm being a bit dramatic, but it's the honest truth. This game isn't hard. It's far worst than that: it's TEDIOUS. Navigating stages, fighting the bosses fights; none of that is actually difficult. Bosses have patterns (mostly) and you can figure them out with a little bit of trail and error. But then you have to ask yourself "why?"; WHY would I want to try to replay the same level again after dying several times from the corridor-wide, instakill death beam that I can't seem to move fast enough to dodge? WHY would I want to continue playing after getting stunlocked by a multi-hit attack, or running through waves of worthless enemies that only serve to whittle down my HP with a few cheap shots so the final boss can gloat about how powerful he is when I start his fight at a disadvantage? WHY is one of the starting characters actually the hard difficulty of the game versus the other who plays way smoother, is faster, and can dodge and move better? WHY have the option to select a character at all without any sort of warning that you should play character X first instead of character Y because they flow better with the level design? WHY does the final boss (along with a few other bosses in the game) have speed and agility along with their hard-hitting, bullet-hell projectile-storm attacks that sometimes have nigh keen accuracy and almost zero reprieve while my character (the unstated hard difficulty character) lacks most of the movement and speed that would allow her to dodge those attacks? WHY do some boss attacks have lingering/secondary hitboxes when the base attack already hits hard and soft stunlocks you?

In the final boss's first phase, the spaceship's landing attack already damages you a good bit; why does it create shockwaves to damage you further? To punish you for trying to escape the initial hit? The second phase dash and the final phase pistol shot leave behind a mini flame pillar that also damages you. You could dodge the shot and still end up getting hit by the little pillar of flame from below it. It's absolute nonsense some of the things that this game has the gall to throw at you. Especially in the later half, where it decides that you've just had it way too good up until that point and starts chucking hordes of enemies, multi-hit/instakill death traps, time-limited resources (running out of air and needing to collect air bubbles). Whatever it can get it's crummy hand on in the attic of tedious troupes.

Now, that doesn't mean there isn't anything good about this game. The soundtrack is great and the pixel art is just as good. Some of the levels themselves (excluding the boss fights) are pretty cool-looking and fun to explore. There's plenty of unlockable content in the game and not of it is behind a paywall, in a Lootbox, or part of a season's pass that asks you to shell out more money. Free extra content is all good to me. And the achievements aren't too difficult to get either if you're looking to 100% the game. But when playing the game inspires me to stay away from it, I start to wonder if the extra content is really worth trying to obtain.

I realize now that I put this game down years ago because I wasn't having fun with it. Is it a cheesy game? For sure. The story on it's own is a 4-cheese pizza with stuffed crust. And bad voice-overs is a plus for me because it's corny and lightens mood if I'm getting frustrated (there's something oddly funny about just how corny this game's voice-overs are). But the game is SOOO tedious that I likely wouldn't dare try to play it again. Not the worst game by a city mile, but personally, this game is a 1-and-done deal for me.

I hadn't played this game in FOREVER. I bought it years ago on release played up to Dreadnought 4th's stage/final boss fight, and stopped playing it for whatever reason. I'm a bit older now, and I don't want to leave a game hanging on the cusp of completion, so I decided I would finish it at the very least. I load into Dreadnought Phase 4, start making my way through the stage aaaaand I die; to a laser cannon enemy that multi-hit me to death. Ok. That's fine. I haven't touched this game in years, so I can hardly blame it for a handful of deaths. If anything, that's par for the course if I want to get back into the swing of things. So I make my way through the level and I die a number of times of along the way. I start getting frustrated, but again, it's mostly on me for being out of the loop and being too stubborn to start fresh from the beginning. So I take my punishment all the way to the end of the level. I finally get to the boss after a brief cutscene, and before I even have time to realize that the cutscene is over and fight is happening, I get rammed by the final boss's first phase (his spaceship) which puts me in a soft stunlock as the ship then proceeds to fire off a barrage of missiles and plasma machine-guns that fire over a dozen projectiles. After dying to that a number of times before prevailing, the boss goes into his second phase, a Mech Suit. He starts flying around constantly and his shots at you are almost pinpoint accurate. Sometimes he's right on top of you, so there's no way to dodge him. You either eat the shot or you "parry" it and get away. But even if you parry, you have to be prepared for any attack that may follow, such as his little pinball attack, or him dashing on the ground which leaves a flame trail that can damage you after the fact, or him charging up to unleash an explosive barrage of bullets in all directions which can instakill you if you're too close to him. It may be tedious, but it's beatable. Then the boss goes into his final phase: Just him but with a lunging knife attack that somehow removes a huge portion of your health. Now, considering everything that he does in the previous two phases, it doesn't sound that bad. But because I'm not sure when a new phase begins and the last one ends (because cutscenes in-between them don't have clear cuts), I eat that first knife attack and lose a huge chuck of my health. Even worse is that he has a grab attack that looks exactly like his lunging knife attack except that the grab is homing and can actually catch you in the air. So you could attempt to read this 50/50 as the knife attack and end up getting tossed to the other side of the stage in a flash like a ragdoll. Now, the damage of the grab is negligible, but because movement is so slippery, any flowing attack or projectile coming your way afterwards can become a hassle to dodge because you're fighting the controls and the boss at the same time. You CAN dodge it. It's DOABLE; I've DONE it. Parried it, whatever. It CAN work. The GAME can work. But SOMETIMES, it doesn't. Sometimes, you just have to eat a combo and lose a chunk of HP. Sometimes, off-screen attacks don't make the sound that they should, so you don't know when they're coming (aside from a warning sign, if it has them). Sometimes, you can breeze through an open stage, and then die 15 times to the boss because the game expects you to have the same freedom and range of movement in a confined box. After my 15th death (overall; not just the final boss), I started to realize why I haven't played this game in so long: [b] I hate it. [/b] Ok, maybe i'm being a bit dramatic, but it's the honest truth. This game isn't hard. It's far worst than that: it's TEDIOUS. Navigating stages, fighting the bosses fights; none of that is actually difficult. Bosses have patterns (mostly) and you can figure them out with a little bit of trail and error. But then you have to ask yourself "why?"; WHY would I want to try to replay the same level again after dying several times from the corridor-wide, instakill death beam that I can't seem to move fast enough to dodge? WHY would I want to continue playing after getting stunlocked by a multi-hit attack, or running through waves of worthless enemies that only serve to whittle down my HP with a few cheap shots so the final boss can gloat about how powerful he is when I start his fight at a disadvantage? WHY is one of the starting characters actually the hard difficulty of the game versus the other who plays way smoother, is faster, and can dodge and move better? WHY have the option to select a character at all without any sort of warning that you should play character X first instead of character Y because they flow better with the level design? WHY does the final boss (along with a few other bosses in the game) have speed and agility along with their hard-hitting, bullet-hell projectile-storm attacks that sometimes have nigh keen accuracy and almost zero reprieve while my character (the unstated hard difficulty character) lacks most of the movement and speed that would allow her to dodge those attacks? WHY do some boss attacks have lingering/secondary hitboxes when the base attack already hits hard and soft stunlocks you? In the final boss's first phase, the spaceship's landing attack already damages you a good bit; why does it create shockwaves to damage you further? To punish you for trying to escape the initial hit? The second phase dash and the final phase pistol shot leave behind a mini flame pillar that also damages you. You could dodge the shot and still end up getting hit by the little pillar of flame from below it. It's absolute nonsense some of the things that this game has the gall to throw at you. Especially in the later half, where it decides that you've just had it way too good up until that point and starts chucking hordes of enemies, multi-hit/instakill death traps, time-limited resources (running out of air and needing to collect air bubbles). Whatever it can get it's crummy hand on in the attic of tedious troupes. Now, that doesn't mean there isn't anything good about this game. The soundtrack is great and the pixel art is just as good. Some of the levels themselves (excluding the boss fights) are pretty cool-looking and fun to explore. There's plenty of unlockable content in the game and not of it is behind a paywall, in a Lootbox, or part of a season's pass that asks you to shell out more money. Free extra content is all good to me. And the achievements aren't too difficult to get either if you're looking to 100% the game. But when playing the game inspires me to stay away from it, I start to wonder if the extra content is really worth trying to obtain. I realize now that I put this game down years ago because I wasn't having fun with it. Is it a cheesy game? For sure. The story on it's own is a 4-cheese pizza with stuffed crust. And bad voice-overs is a plus for me because it's corny and lightens mood if I'm getting frustrated (there's something oddly funny about just how corny this game's voice-overs are). But the game is SOOO tedious that I likely wouldn't dare try to play it again. Not the worst game by a city mile, but personally, this game is a 1-and-done deal for me.