OTXO Review (nobody)
I don't really like writing reviews for games very often. This will be an exception.
OTXO is a top-down, fast-paced shoot-em-up game. A lot of people have been comparing it to Hotline Miami, which is valid in some respects, but ultimately an inaccurate comparison that taken at face value, gives the wrong impression: while the genre is the same and the inspirations taken are present, its predecessor places emphasis on slow, careful gameplay and one hit kills, OTXO is a game about fluidity, speed, style, and grace.
The way this game works in large part is by putting emphasis on rapid ultraviolence: you are given currency for killing enemies in rapid succession, and given multipliers on your income if you perform quick, non-stop combos. This money gives you the powerups (presented in the form of rare liquors) that will ultimately enable even faster-paced, wilder, more reckless gameplay. Towards the end of the game, I honestly sometimes felt afraid to blink, lest I miss some pesky floor-lizard or suicide-vest maniac barreling towards me at 800kmph.
The game oozes style with a limited color palette, which keeps your attention trigger-wired and primed on the things that matter: enemies, health, damage being dealt, the level of focus you have remaining. The music is excellent, too: moody, driving music that remains in the background but sets the mood with a cool bass-riff - sort of reminding me of Jesper Kyd's work, but faster-paced and with a little bit of electronic influence. The pacing is also really good: beat three levels, and then stop at the bar to ponder your upgrades. There are also boss fights interspersed between every two bar visits, which feel essential to keeping the pacing interesting, although sometimes they drag on for a bit - mostly just because you can't wait to get back to the main levels again.
There's a lot of content. Ten or so different 'worlds' or 'biomes', some ~hundred different upgrades, probably at least fifty guns, a good number of boss fights. A lot of these are inherently locked behind in-game currency, at times means you need to be willing to slightly sabotage your present run in order to unlock new stuff - weapons, especially. This ultimately doesn't really matter much though, as regardless of what weapons or upgrades you have unlocked,the game generally more or less plays the same, which means you're not missing out on too much if you're not much of a completionist.
I'd been keeping an eye on OTXO for a good while during its development phase, and oftentimes with a lot of skepticism that it would meaningfully differentiate itself from the other games in this space. Playing it now, that skepticism was clearly unwarranted: this is a very well designed game that takes the hair-trigger shoot-em-up so many people have been itching for and executes it flawlessly. I would strongly recommend you buy this game.