Total Chaos Against Apathy

Modern audiences will hate this, and that is why I love it. Oh yeah, you actually gotta 1CC the game to beat it, so good luck.

I already knew tank controls were awesome before playing this game, but its always nice to have a reminder. TCAA is minimalist action game focused entirely around two buttons. Attack and Stronger Attack That Costs Health. Each weapon does have different variations of these moves depending on which direction you're holding down or if you hold down the button but that it. No dodge, no block, no parrying, you can't even strafe left and right. Your only way to defend against enemies is to control them via careful positioning and abusing the ample amount of hit stun the game gives you. The three weapons each prioritise different aspects of the combat. The Cleaver is short range but fast with high damage, the Cannon is a ranged weapon that rewards proper spacing by letting you safely attack from a distance, and the Scythe has long, wide swings that are better for crowd control. The Cannon is by far my favourite, scratching an itch left by other great action game gun modes like KH2s Wisdom form and FF16s Leviathan. I also consider it by far the easiest one to learn in spite of the in game warning that its harder to use. Meanwhile my worst runs are always with the Cleaver, with its short range and more limited move set being harder for me to get results with. It's beautiful when everything flows together. Enemies are numerous, aggressive and can combo you to death extremely fast, so every encounter feels like you're on the razors edge, moving around as carefully as possible, figuring out which enemies need to be stunned and how you can take advantage of them when they are. I wouldn't say it's for the faint of heart, even a relatively experienced action game fan like me is still getting used to its unique quirks (maybe I just suck though), but take a second to learn all its quirks and you'll an extremely unique and satisfying game that knows how to focus on what's important. Quick question though, how does the healing system work? Like sometimes when I kill enemies I'll get 15 health back and that's nice but I'm 3 hours in and I still don't know what triggers it. Is it tied to your combo or your rank or something? Is it actually just random? Pls help me...

this game slaps, dude. have barely sunk any time into this thing, but i can already feel myself wanting to go back for one more run. every weapon feels great, but immediately the cleaver in particular feels superb. alternating between using my melee to set up just enough hitstun to slide in for a guaranteed grab or finishing my string to confirm a kill is so satisfying. it also helps that both of its throws are satisfying to use, and the differences in strengths and weakness between each justify the lightning fast decision making it requires to quickly decide between each one in a tense moment where you need those i-frames the most. awesome, rad, nothing but praise so far. hoping for this game to feel as good on the 50th run as it did on the 5th. edit: it felt better, actually. and i think i might be a cannon kinda girly (note: it would be lovely if the practice menu saved your entered settings after finishing the stage! having to re-enter the settings each and every run is a bit cumbersome)