Don't Stop, Girlypop!

First off, the gameplay is fantastic. It is very fast-paced and heavily movement-based, requiring you to keep your speed up constantly. All of the weapons feel great to use. Overall, it gives off strong Ultrakill vibes and is just fun to play. The music is high-energy, which goes with the gameplay perfectly. While the visuals can be a bit jarring, and so incredibly colorful that it almost hurts your eyes, I think they are charming in their own way. Overall, the core loop, graphics, and visual design are solid. The one thing I really disliked, however, was the story. For lack of a better word, it was dumb and completely unnecessary. I do not understand why developers feel the need to shoehorn narrative into games like this when the gameplay should easily speak for itself. Maybe it is just me, but the constant phone vibrations, being incessantly talked at, and having to manually skip everything felt like a chore when I just wanted to play. I skipped literally every single cutscene because a game this fast-paced should not be interrupted by story elements. Overall, though, it is still a good game. I would give it a 7 or a 7.5 out of 10.

Don't stop. Girlypop. But maybe like once a week. For maybe 1-2 hours session. But like seriously, FOR THE REVOLUTION! PS. E5M3 is singlehandedly (almost) the best gaming experience I've ever had. The game itself is pretty good!

My personal disappointment of the year. In theory, this should be a slam dunk: y2k-coded, self-aware boomer shooter, tinged in tropey hyperpop sparkle. However in practice this just doesn't work and all of the boxes it fails to check just really bring it down. It's sad, because the bones are there. You start the game by "pressing your favourite button". Yes. Pick a difficulty but instead of easy, medium, hard it's "Girl Wearing a Skirt as a Top, Girlypop, and Baddie". Yes. You get the communications through a flip phone. YES. But almost immediately it ruins all of that good intention with just really basic, ugly textures and scenery. Which is fine in something like the Brazilian Drug Dealer games, where being ugly is the point. But I don't think it works here, because now we're clashing design aesthetics. Do you want sparkly shiny hyperpop, or butt ugly? The enemy design doesn't work either. The texture work leads every enemy that isn't a boss to blend in with the background, and when you're expected to go as fast as possible, that's just a cardinal sin. And it's like the developer knew this, and added a heart or star texture to point out where the enemy is, and that almost makes it worse. The final enemy in a room also tends to cling out of view to the ceiling or high wall, making clearing a room a search. NO. I also don't really gel with the design philosophy of going as fast as possible, utilizing the wave dash, which is done with the quick succession of the CTRL + Space + Shift buttons. The levels, when not in a killbox have too many twists and turns to really have that make sense. Maybe it's me, but I think that's too much to be doing at all times, but I was able to keep max speed without it, so I don't know. But the real killer is the music. I know it's a tough ask, but for a game like this, every track needs to be a hyperpop banger, especially in a blood-pumping boomer shooter. The music just isn't that. Overall, it's just ugly and not pleasant to look at. The texture work is just not good, especially when you're expected to bedazzle and sparkle up your guns and body (which should be a campy daydream) just look into a blobby mess. It's not fun to play, though I assume the game was developed in part to laser-focus on the GDC and speedrun community. In a better developer's hands this could have really run away with the concept and delivered what I was looking forward to here, but I cannot recommend this to many people. There is a demo, which is sadly a taste of the full game, bar none, so you can decide for yourself. But it's really a shame.