20 Minutes Till Dawn Review (Ric)
20 Minutes Till Dawn is the latest in a genre that has not been classified officially to my knowledge. The verdict is still not in, but I'm going to call it what it is: Bullet Heaven.
You shoot, you level, you build, you destroy or get destroyed. It's a familiar loop among its peers, but what makes it stand out are as follows:
1. The atmosphere and overall aesthetic are vibing hard, particularly if you want to juice up your gameboy with some extra bits of soul. I could have done with more soundtrack variety, but after fulfilling all achievements, requiring me to play every girl and weapon on Darkness 15, I'm still not sick of that foot-tapping beat. It won't gel with everyone's tastes, but if you like what you see in the trailers and screenshots, you'll have a good time.
2. The build-variety is clean, slick, and balanced. I've played other Bullet Heavens where not every weapon felt as viable with specific characters/classes, thus making maximum completion force you to pick what works best and stick with it. Something I found enjoyable about 20MTD is I found myself choosing bizarre combinations, and with the help of careful rune tree-picks, the results were that my win-streak never really ended, despite how far I was pushing myself into goofy territories. I rarely struggled to make a girl, weapon, and rune tree work, and the fact that I'd have to deliberately sabotage myself is proof that the game design is solid enough to deserve props.
Highly recommended. And look at that? I managed to get through this without name-dropping other Bullet Heavens. Which ones do I enjoy? Most of them. But this definitely deserves your cup-of-coffee-bucks if you've enjoyed others.