If you are a regular user of public transport, you will know that there are certain types of annoying passengers that appear regularly. The kind that opens into two seats and doesn’t budge. The person who listens to your music at full volume or takes a phone call. The man who drops a mysterious mask that forces you to put it on, after which you wake up outside a mansion whose rooms are constantly changing and whose inhabitants want you dead. That last one could be in otxothe new game of worlddog developer Lateralis Heavy Industries, but hey, it only takes once.
Let’s not beat around the bush: otxo is very inspired by Hotline Miami. It’s an obvious comparison, but otxo He wears it proudly on his monochrome sleeve. The game of Lateralis is a hyper-violent top-down shooter with fast-paced movement mechanics as you smash down doors, clear rooms of enemies, and watch their blood splatter the floor. Beneath the layers of gore and stylish combat is a psychological narrative potentially hinting that your character may or may not be going through some sort of psychotic break. Can otxo do enough to distinguish themselves from their influences?
otxo it’s a ridiculously fun shooter
There are some key differences that make otxo from Hotline Miami. For one, he doesn’t have the drugged-out hyper-neon color scheme of his closest cousin, instead choosing a monochromatic look that makes him feel like max payne through Mad World. For another, otxo It’s a roguelike, and a pretty tough one. What that means in practice is that otxo it focuses much less on moving through a linear narrative and much more on mastering its core gameplay.
Fortunately, that core game is excellent. otxoShooting is fast, fluid and responsive. Kicking down doors and gutting crowds of bad guys is cathartic and satisfying. otxo focuses more on firearms than Hotline MiamiIt’s a depraved lead pipe hoedown, so you’ll be shooting a lot of guys. To facilitate that, otxoAll enemies drop their weapons when killed, and we encourage you to grab weapons off the ground instead of reloading your own.
This leads to a frantic dance where you’re constantly shooting enemies, swapping your weapon for your old one (which now inexplicably has full ammo), and firing again. otxo he refuses to let you sit still for even a moment, for if you do, you’re dead. You’ll need to master their fluid and graceful combat if you want to have even the slightest chance of reaching the center of the imaginatively named mansion and rescuing your beloved (assuming, of course, that’s the real goal – it’s a bit of a blur, like most things in otxo are).
To help you do this, you also have access to a focus bar, which slows down time. max payne-style and gives you the chance to react to the endless waves of bullets being fired at you. Slowing down time, getting through an enemy’s bullets, and separating your head from their shoulders is never boring. My only complaint with the Focus system is that the reload speed is a bit stingy. You will need to be in Focus almost constantly to survive. otxoespecially later, but the Focus recharges so slowly that otxo he accidentally incentivizes just sitting still and doing nothing while you wait for him to come back. That feels at odds with otxoThe frantic and constantly moving combat.
After a while, otxo it gets repetitive
It is good that otxoThe core combat of is so compelling because that’s really all the game has to offer. Unlike other roguelike or roguelite games, you don’t unlock permanent upgrades between runs. Instead, you periodically collect tonics that serve as temporary buffs during races, and you can contribute excess money to unlock new tonics for future races.
This is a solid system in theory, but in practice, it’s pretty mediocre. Some of the tonics feel so essential that they almost feel like they should be permanent upgrades, while others are practically useless. I never found a use for any tonic that revolved around grenades or kunai, simply because otxoFirearms feel so good to handle that I never really wanted to use any other type of weapon. Unfortunately, the tonics you can select are randomly generated, and while you can pay to recast them, it’s rarely worth doing. Instead, some races feel a bit cursed with bad luck.
The problem is frame. otxo it’s a purely roguelike experience; While there’s an ending to be found, it’s buried beneath increasingly difficult layers of baddies, and a bug sends it back to the beginning with virtually nothing to suggest it ever got that far. Since there are no permanent upgrades, you rely on weapons dropped by enemies, so you can’t experiment with new builds either.
This means that otxoThe core moment-to-moment combat is really all the experience has to offer. If you never get tired of shooting otxoEndless waves of masked mooks, you will love every second of your time with him. If you’re clamoring for something extra, unfortunately you’ll have to keep clamoring. There are additional weapons to unlock, but they’re obtained through random gachapon rooms that you only run into occasionally, and they don’t seem to change the main game in any significant way. Make no mistake: combat is everything. otxo has, and it starts to feel monotonous after a while.
Something made me go back to otxo
Although otxo doesn’t have much beyond its main combat, the refinements it makes to the Hotline Miami formula means this is not a problem. otxo he is not ashamed of his influences; is Hotline Miami satisfies john wickwith a liberal touch max payne and more than a breath of killer7. It’s quite a cocktail, so it’s impressive that otxo manages to create such a compelling and addictive core loop without ever dropping the ball in terms of difficulty.
Maybe otxoThe best feat of is that even though there are no permanent updates, I consistently felt a sense of improvement with each successive run. It was more palpable when I returned to the opening areas after dying on the sixth or seventh floor. The first few levels were tough enough while I was learning the ropes, but after enduring later levels, I slipped through earlier stages and boss fights without an ounce of damage to show for my efforts.
Of course, some of that is because otxoThe boss fights are a bit lacking. Compared to the constant despair and skin-of-the-teeth survival of the levels themselves, the bosses almost feel like a reprieve, which may or may not have been intentional. They are intriguingly designed and often add to the undercurrent of psychological horror. otxo I never fully commit, but mechanically speaking, I didn’t find them particularly interesting.
That lurking background is another aspect that establishes otxo apart from Hotline Miami. While certain in-game narrative sequences of Lateralis feel copied wholesale from miami, there is a more personal and less psychedelic feel to the story. The mansion metaphor is perhaps a bit over the top: depression sure sucks, huh? – but the fragments of narration otxo the trickle-feeding, combined with the haunting design of many of the bosses, provides just enough incentive to keep going when things get repetitive.
otxo | final thoughts
I really enjoyed my time with otxo. It’s not as original as Hotline Miami (Obviously, since it draws so much from Dennaton’s influential shooter, it couldn’t be.) But it finds a way to iterate and expand on the formula of that revered indie hit while building an identity of its own. otxo it has very little to offer beyond its core gameplay loop, and it gets repetitive after a while, but it’s responsive and fluid enough to keep you entertained during shorter gaming sessions. Turn it on in short bursts, like, oh, let’s say, when you’re on the train. Just watch out for the masked men.
otxo it was reviewed on PC via Steam with a copy provided by the developer over the course of 10 hours of gameplay. All screenshots were taken during the review process.