Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer

2023-12-25
Incredibly funny writing and world building. Shooting is tough on the Steam Deck, definitely would have been better to play on PC with a mouse and keyboard. The enemies are amazing. The guys who run at you going "YADDA GUBBA YADDA" like Limp Bizkit or something. Music is incredible as would be expected from the creator of Hypnospace Outlaw. It even has references to the original game a la "BWL" (bursting with laughter) and the band Seepage.

Gameplay-wise it classic old school shooter. The problem is this means it's 1) really hard and 2) there's a ton of backtracking and not knowing where to go. 1 is mitigated by difficulty settings (really would be fine with mouse and keyboard as I said) and 2) is somewhat mitigated by the in-game map system but not by a huge amount. What's interesting is the difficulty in knowing where to go seems to be somewhat deliberate because sometimes you'll go the wrong way and there'll be writing on the wall like "Wrong way idiot". Which is funny the first time but it happens just often enough that 10 minute levels turn into 30 minute levels and the game loses its momentum very, very quickly and becomes pretty frustrating.

But overall I'd recommend because it's a quick runthrough and it is an incredible visual and audio spectacle that really captures the type of stuff teenagers liked in the early 00's.