Broken Reality Review (SeriousStrelok)
I don't wish to spoil too much. However, if you loved titles like Jazzpunk and Hypnospace Outlaw, you're gonna have the time of your life with this one.
Right from the moment you're dropped into the first level, the game's style becomes clear. You are thrust into a computer-generated world that resembles tropes and aesthetics of what feels like 90's to early 2000's internet. In a somewhat metroidvanian fashion, you have to explore a few levels within a hub world, interact with strange characters, overcome challenges, and collect powerups and "likes" scattered and floating around the environments in a very old-school manner, in order to level up and progress further. The first couple of hours, I was not only hooked but addicted. The graphics, old-school design, nostalgic feels, things to discover etc just made me want to keep playing and find out more. Each level is packed with unique detail and various fun tasks. The shipping cruise is probably my favourite (something about that one feels the most nostalgic to me for some reason), and the kitchen/dining chacha music is just one of many tracks that I can't get out of my head.
Unfortunately, once you reach the final "innernet" level, that's when the game's quality takes a nosedive. It's not that the level is terrible, but it's quite unbalanced and frustrating in parts, and just largely lacks the nostalgia and charming worldly feel that the other hub levels are drenched with. That said, I still forced my way through it just once to get the full story in order to see how it ends (and it is a very trippy ending indeed). As of now, much as I like replaying this game, I almost no longer bother continuing through the innernet level. Whenever I reach that point, I just prefer to relive the game's earlier magic and simply tend to boot up a new game again every time.
While the last 20% of the game leaves much to be desired, I'd still argue the first 80% of the journey is well worth the experience. Few games leave such a breath of fresh air for their uniqueness. Bring on the sequel!!
85/100 (95 if you don't include the innernet)