Otxo

[h1]OTXO — Hotline Miami's speed without Hotline Miami's QoL and intrigue[/h1] [b]TL;DR: Not recommended. The aesthetic works, but the game withholds information it has no reason to withhold, and the weapon variety is thinner than the count suggests.[/b] Picked this up fresh from the Humble Roguelike Bundle. It's very much a Hotline Miami-esque game, and I come to it as someone who played Hotline Miami extensively and finished it at 100%. This one didn't land for me, and I want to be specific about why. [h2]Read this first: my frame of reference[/h2] I'm coming at OTXO with Hotline Miami as my baseline, because OTXO is explicitly chasing that style. That means I arrive with a picture of how this kind of game works, and OTXO changes several things in directions I don't like. Some of my criticism is genuinely about design, and some of it is about the gap between what I expected and what I got. Worth knowing before you weigh any of it. That said — I genuinely cannot understand how this game sits at 93% positive. That surprises me a lot. I'm usually able to see what a well-reviewed game is doing even when it isn't for me, and here I can't. Make of that what you will. [h2]What's fine[/h2] The art style is genuinely cool — no complaints there. The atmosphere is mysterious, artsy, deliberately hard to parse. Honestly that was true of Hotline Miami too, and I never found either one especially gripping on that front. It's fine. It's not the problem. The sniper rifle is satisfying. That I'll give it. There also seemed to be a touch of aim assist built into it, which I appreciated — though it's never stated anywhere, which is a theme I'll come back to. [h2]The focus mechanic: good idea, odd execution[/h2] As a principle it's nice. Two things bother me about how it works. [b]First, it doesn't just slow time — it slows bullets.[/b] Normally a slow-motion mechanic keeps everything proceeding as it otherwise would and just gives you more room to read and react. Here, projectiles themselves are actively slowed down, which means dodging [i]outside[/i] of focus is substantially harder than it would otherwise be. That feels counterintuitive: the mechanic isn't giving you an advantage, it's compensating for a disadvantage the game built in. [b]Second, the focus duration is set quite low[/b], and this is another thing that should have been an accessibility option. You can extend it via the right liqueurs, but only to a degree, and only if you happen to find them. That's a core mechanic gated behind run luck. [h2]The camera problem[/h2] Here's something I only realised I valued because OTXO doesn't have it: in Hotline Miami you can push the mouse (or right stick) out and see further than your character can, so you know where enemies are before you walk into them. OTXO doesn't do this. And it isn't in the accessibility options either — it isn't offered at all. In a game this fast and this lethal, that's a real design problem, not a stylistic choice. You're not being challenged, you're being kept in the dark. [h2]Opacity where there's no reason for it[/h2] This is my core complaint, and it shows up repeatedly. [list] [*] [b]No glossary for the liqueurs.[/b] Weapons you can review with one of the NPCs. The liqueurs you can't — there's no way to see what you've already unlocked. That's a structural gap, not a mystery. [*] [b]The enemy health bar is a liqueur.[/b] A run-dependent pickup you might see once in fifteen runs. Displaying enemy health should be a permanent feature, not a lucky draw. [*] [b]The aim assist on the sniper isn't communicated at all.[/b] It felt good, but I had to guess it was there. [/list] A game can be mysterious, artsy and cryptic in its [i]story[/i] and still be transparent in its [i]systems[/i]. Those are different things. OTXO conflates them. [h2]No accessibility difficulty options[/h2] There's no way to lower the difficulty to ease yourself in or just enjoy the game more casually. For a roguelike this punishing, that's a shame — and it's increasingly standard elsewhere. [h2]The weapons are less varied than they look[/h2] There are around eight weapons. Functionally I counted three: sniper, shotgun, and machine gun/pistol, where the last category all does the same job. A sniper feels different from a shotgun, sure. But within the categories, the differences come down to which liqueurs buff which stats, and that's it. It made the whole thing feel monotonous faster than it should have. There are also no permanent stat upgrades, which I think would genuinely improve the game. And no melee weapons that I found — Hotline Miami had those and I liked them. Maybe they unlock later. I didn't get there. Broadly, the roguelike layer didn't catch me here at all. Hotline Miami had no unlockables and didn't need them; OTXO adds them and they mostly serve to make core mechanics conditional on luck. [h2]The story[/h2] Weird, and presumably it clarifies over time. But it didn't hook me. Hotline Miami didn't hook me on story either — it just had other things keeping me there. This doesn't. [h2]Where I stopped[/h2] I started it twice. By the second run I already wasn't motivated, and I pushed through anyway to give it a fair shot. It didn't get better. There won't be a third attempt, at least not any time soon. [h2]Verdict[/h2] [b]Not recommended.[/b] The aesthetic is good and the sniper feels great, but between the missing extended camera, the systems it refuses to explain, the absent difficulty options and the weapon variety that's mostly cosmetic, there wasn't enough here to keep me. If you loved Hotline Miami for how readable its combat was and how much its world pulled you along, this is a step backwards. 93%. I really don't get it.

What if Hotline Miami, but none of the color, or level design, just the same procedurally generated black an white hallways with side rooms.