El Paso, Elsewhere Review (X)
I don't where to start with this game, I was really enjoying it until about ch 22 or 23. It was really good since it is a homage to Max Payne with it's own unique spin to the formula.
Pros:
* The voice acting especially the MC and his ex are really good, except for the hostages and some of the other NPCs.
*The OST is great, it being rap is a complaint among some reviewers but for me it was great. It really fit the tone of the game and tbh the argument against it is asinine, I can understand that It might not be your cup of tea, but saying it ruined the game for you is kind of stupid, I mean if you dislike the music, you can just mute it and play some music that you do like over it. Mind you some songs were repetitive, but not so bad to the point I refused to play the game. That's like me saying Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey is unplayable because I hate orchestral music (which I do), and write off the game because of my distaste of the music genre, but guess what, the music fits the oppressive tone and elevates the game from a good to great game (Vanilla not Redux, I dont like Redux).
*The graphics are pretty cool, I also enjoy some of the aesthetics of the levels, a lot of them were really cool.
*The story is very straightfoward, It focus on more enviromental storytelling over telling the story bit by bit. I actually prefer this kind of story telling.
Cons:
*The level design is horribly repetitive, there are so many levels from where I played, It had the same level structure and It overstays it's welcome. There are some unique levels like the castle, but there are so many graveyard levels, it was getting really old.
*The lack of enemy variety is another problem I have with the game, for about 9 levels you are stuck with the same one enemy that run towards you to swipe. It is not until level 10 where you are introduced to a new enemy.
*The game's difficulty is way too easy, I didn't even utilize the slow motion until later on in the game, enemies are complete jokes and doesn't get challenging until Ch 18.
* The game (seeing that It's 46 levels) is way too long, I mean i'm not saying the length is an issue, it is just due to the repetitive level structure, it feels longer than it should (I did get to only lvl 23 and even then It still feels way too long).
* The biggest fatal flaw for me is the checkpoint system, This is what prevented me from continuing on with the game, You can sometimes get a checkpoint where there are still enemies around and if you have low health you can get spawn killed very frequently, this is something that definitely needs to be fixed because it is a colossal problem that impedes progress, I would at least give a checkpoint when there are no enemies around.
* The teleporting enemies are the worst enemy in the whole game. They are absolute cancer especially in iirc ch 18 or 19, where they can kill you before you can have time to recollect, which is part of the checkpoint problem.
* One more flaw I have to point out is when you exit the game, you don't keep your checkpoint, I know that you can lose the checkpoint but since some levels can be long, keeping the checkpoint should be mandatory because I don't feel like restarting the whole level again, so I have to force myself to play the whole level then quit the game.
Overall hopefully the developer doesn't pin me as a toxic pos, because I generally really liked the game, but the cons I mentioned just makes me not want to play anymore of it. It's up to you if this is the game for you. hopefully the devs take these criticisms and put in into their next game, because even though I stopped playing, I wanna see what else they have in store.