The Citadel

Really great Doom-lik/Tactical-ish game! It is really unique in the pile of boomer shooter/Doom like games we got now day! And anime/Guro/Style are really great, The dev really go all out! You can see the passion of that guy while playing. Its feel really good when you playing a game or experience a medias that feels like you can see through it and see the maker enjoy making it for him/her self and just happen to show it to the world! Such a kind person...

"This is just like one of my japanese animes!" Gameplay was pretty good, weapons felt punchy, most weapons had some use aside the ones with super rare ammo or that couldn't hit ♥♥♥♥ like the shotgun (before the narrow barrel upgrade). Levels were mixed. While they were graphically boring, they had a lot of variation. I laughed a bit with the Wolfenstein/DOOM secret levels. I didn't find the game too hard, even though I think I went into the hard difficulty from the start? (Jumped on the middle hidden path on the Quake-like level) I increased the optional settings to medium and didn't feel much difference aside some enemies spamming more projectiles at once. Leaning felt overpowered. Its like enemies couldn't see you as long you were leaning, even though your entire body was away from the wall. I always had a lot of ammo on all guns, and that even before the game doubles then infinites your carrying capacity. I actually was selling ammo very often, I ended the game with around 15k money, even after buying all upgrades and the special weapons. The last two bosses I had over 60 rockets. And I think I cheesed the last level because I could shoot everyone with the sniper through the invisible wall. The gore wasn't that amazing. Enemies explode into gibblets, but they come out so clean and with these random colors that they look like LEGO characters exploding. Didn't find any lore to explain what was going on. So mostly confused on why everyone are anime kids. My major problems with the game were: - Lack of tutorials for some mechanics. .I get one upgrade that says that if I "over doze" (sic) on O2, I get bullet time. I use an O2 canister at max energy and... nothing happens? .They never tell you you can pick up discarded mags you drop from a quick reload. .Apparently getting food with a full bar upgrades your health? .You can hold your breath to steady your aim. I never found the button that does that. - The ledge grab doesn't works half of the time. - When you reset a level, some items don't return. I noticed that because when I was doing the tutorial, no bloodbags or O2 canisters were spawning until I died. - WHY is there a hunger mechanic?? - The game started to randomly crash a lot during and after Act 5. So, it guess its alright?

[i]asterisk signs are used for minor details and notes[/i] ---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☐ Masterpiece ☐ Beautiful ☑ An original artistic direction ☐ Good ☑ Decent ☐ normal ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS + original artstyle and some interesting designs +- colour variety/location style doesn't really change much throughout the game (I guess that makes sense when it's set inside some citadel) * the flame effects (flamethrower/explosions) don't really fit the overall artstyle ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Won’t ever touch any other game anymore ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☑ Mehh ☐ Tic Tac toe is better ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't + most weapons have actual bullet drop rather than just being hit-scan which works pretty nice and is rather unique for boomer shooters + weapon durability is a nice mechanic - the more damaged they are, the more often they jam makes some encounters feel slightly more tense when your weapon suddenly jams +- big weapon variety as well as some different upgrades/alternatives you can buy throughout the game though I might've expected a bit too much when I thought that every weapon will have an alternative/upgrades +- level design is alright, the verticality on some levels is pretty nice but they're generally quite short and everything can look pretty similar (might get lost for a bit in some levels) +- having 3 different status meters (blood, oxygen, food) is an interesting immersive-sim style mechanic they decrease over time, so it simulates kind of a need to progress so that you don't run out not sure if I personally like it that much, but removing it would definitely completely change the feel of the game +- think that the resources are a bit unbalanced - quite scarce in the early levels, but too much in later levels (mainly ammo, food and bloodbags) - bosses are a bit too big bullet sponges even on (unedited) medium difficulty, but at the same time the chaingun just melts their HP if you have enough ammo - the enemy variety is decent but you'll basically see most of them through the first 2 acts - would be nice if they were spread a bit more through the game - the enemies are basically the same thing with just different sprites - would be nice if they had some unique abilities rather than just rifle/shotgun/plasma weapons - similar to enemies, you'll get most of the weapons pretty early too * would be nice if weapon durability was visible in the weapon wheel as well ---{ Replayability }--- ☐ A one-time experience ☐ For achievements ☑ If you wait a few months/years (or with mods) ☐ Definitely ☐ Infinitely replayable (or almost) +- I think there's definitely some replay value if you're interested in the world/lore and want to see some things you might've missed otherwise there isn't really much replay value - unless you want to play it before Beyond Citadel (the sequel) or just really like the gunplay ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Not too bad ☑ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf +- not the highest audio quality for the weapons - overall audio can be a bit buggy - specifically sounds layering on top of each other and sounding a lot worse - it was probably intentional, but hitting enemies affects the BGM and it can sound pretty off (crackling and peaking) ---{ Music }--- ☐ Just filling noises/No music ☑ Trivial and uneventful ☐ Decent Soundtrack ☑ Good and/or fitting the game's artistic dispositions ☐ Great ☐ Memorable ☐ Peak ☐ Transcending whispers of a forgotten world + the main menu/safe zone theme definitely stood out the most for me, especially in this type of game (you know you can rest when you hear it) + when you do hear the actual music (related to point below), it's actually pretty good +- most of the time you'll hear just some ambient sounds - fits the style, but it's quite minimalistic ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma + quite detailed gore (although without any blood) ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☑ Potato ☑ average ☐ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer +- I recommend having the "debris disappearance" set lower (10-30 seconds), because it can affect the FPS - while the system requirments are quite low, the game isn't that well optimized so in some high-density levels, you might experience some quite significat FPS drops (dropping close to 30 FPS) ---{ Game Size }--- ☑ Floppy Disk (<1gb) ☐ Old Fashioned (1-9gb) ☐ Workable (10-49gb) ☐ Big (50-100gb) ☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive ☐ You will want an enitre hard drive to hold it + only takes 785mb ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ My 90 year old grandma could play it ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☑ Medium (second half) ☑ Hard (first half) ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ☐ Team Ninja games + difficulty will mostly depend on your playstyle - if you want to play it more as slower cover-shooter, or more similar to other boomer shooters + pretty nice difficulty settings - which doesn't only affect the enemy health/damage and can be edited later there are also additional mechanics settings like a chance for weapons to jam or firing style (classic/tactical) +- while the first half can actually get rather difficult because of the lack of resources, the second half feels significantly easier) +- having at least some armor basically trivializes a lot of the levels/bosses - bosses are always pretty big bullet sponges and if you don't wear any armor, the plasma balls can kill you pretty easily ---{ Grind }--- ☑ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Required for achievement hunting ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second live for grinding + more or less linear boomer shooter, nothing to grind for ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☑ Some lore ☐ It's there for people who want it ☐ Bizarre ☐ Average ☐ Well written ☐ Good ☐ Very Good ☑ Leading to more in-depth researches/thoughts ☐ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life + some lore, mostly found through dialogues and visual storytelling +- would appreciate if there was a bit more story - in forms of more location variety/details, some notes, NPCs, etc. +- sometimes the translation can be a bit off ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee (<2 hours) ☑ Short (3-10 hours) ☐ Average (11-25 hours) ☐ Long (26-50 hours) ☐ I have to ask my boss for vacation time (51-99 hours) ☐ To infinity and beyond (100+ hours/doesn't have an "end") + first playthrough will take around 5-7 hours (depends on difficulty, how much you explore and if you're doing secret levels) ---{ Achievements }--- ☑ No achievements ☐ Obtainable just by playing ☐ Requires multiple playthroughs ☐ Some grind ☐ Significant grind ☐ Too much grind ☐ Requires co-op/multiplayer ☐ Requires DLC(s) ☐ Can't be obtained anymore ☐ Hard to obtain (specific playstyle/challenge) ☐ Completionist ☐ Missable ---{ Bugs }--- ☐ Never heard of ☑ Minor bugs ☐ Fixable ☑ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ☐ Hollow Knight +- opening weapon wheel and choosing weapon by clicking will cause the wheel to bug out - can't hover in the wheel next time you open it fixed by opening and closing pause menu +- some enemies aren't shown on the minimap - switching weapons can bug it out a bit and combine different weapons together -> Whalegun scope with SMG for example - rather surprisingly, it crashed (1x throughout my playthrough) ---{ 8 / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☑ 8 ☐ 9 ☐ 10 ☐ 1̷̤̃1̸̢̤͗̓ Quite far from a classic boomer-shooter, but an interesting experience nonetheless. Always appreciate developers doing a bit more experimental style games rather than staying with a formula that's known to work well. I'd recommend giving the demo a try first though. If you're a fan of "unusual" indie games and/or boomer shooters, this might be a game for you.