This game is fascinating, because there are stretches of the game where I think the Dev has a better understanding of timing, pacing, environmental storytelling and buildup than about 95% of game devs (e.g. the movement through the base where you see the fuckoff hueg portal in the background and so much of the map involves kind of moving around it, or the sideways rain section) ... only then to not have any payoff.
And of course you have to blast through wave after wave of enemies who on hard, are really only more dangerous because they just eat more shots.
Like, I think in terms of how to set up payoffs and what story to tell, the Dev is really only one good editor away from some fantastic storytelling. The editor's job mostly being to hit them with a stick when there's no payoff, or when sections go on too long (to be fair this might just be the combat; but even the music ends before the combat does). But because the combat takes so long (too many enemies, too slow to kill), and because your regeneration is fairly slow if you want to play around it, the areas where the pacing would be perfect for a faster game just kind of don't work.
Or again with the base example, it doesn't really feel like there's a payoff despite how great the portal serves as a background environmental piece and theme. Just a bizzare game to play and experience. So much attention to detail and care in the right places undone by some rookie mistakes on pacing/combat/time to kill, and the occasional "you gunna finish this buildup now or what?".
It reminds me a lot of a really great video on a
You must be registered to see the links
, and how there's this unique type of game (which I would say Cyanbrain fits right into) of the game itself isn't great (although I'd say it's good), and yet somehow it is exactly the story I think the dev wanted to tell, and 80% of the experience there, undone by 2-5 consistent gameplay/pacing mistakes that undercut the rest.
I have no idea if I'm ever going to play this game again, but I will be thinking about it for a while yet.