izigame.me

Overall: 7.5/10. I have never played a more disappointing 7.5/10 in my life. With time to think I actually think less of the game and its sloppily designed moveset that has redundant moves and awkward overlap. I had fun in spite of its design and not because of it.
If you like what the Steam Page says this is influenced by, you can find something to enjoy here, but only on a surface level and only if you're ready for a game that expects you to play a certain way. The game's penultimate boss took me over 4 straight hours of attempts, and I did not find him fun. The final boss took me one attempt, and I did not find him fun. While I don't regret buying at launch (since I got the original Slave Zero), I do think this game is not worth $25 as it is; $15 would be ideal. It is, to put it nicely, a game that doesn't feel like it was playtested for balance even once.
The good first: This game's presentation is mostly incredible. The Strider 2/Full Metal Forth-esque PS1 graphical style with Dreamcast-level fidelity is pulled off to perfection, the sprite work is on par with early ArcSys titles, the low-poly work is some of the best of any modern release (doubly so in the Quake mod Episode Enyo), the art direction is insane, the voice acting is extremely well-done, the story is simple but effective with a great build to the final area and bosses, the music is consistently good, and the menus/UI are solid. For every frustration I had a moment where the game just looked or sounded incredible to push me forward to see more. I also appreciate a lot of the little touches, like the multiple attack Taunts or the cavalcade of palette swaps/filters.
In terms of things that aren't bad but weren't exactly to my taste: Corpse juggling serves zero purpose beyond getting the blood & guts kill animation off of certain moves which only ever matters for a single enemy type that will otherwise explode with a hitbox on death. The lack of any new attacks becoming available besides Ordinances throughout the campaign was a bummer, especially since three of them are variants on the same thing. The tutorial is better than the lack of one in the demo, but there are still several techniques it does not tell you about, though I can tell this was more for the sake of old-school "figure it out" mentality and nothing omitted is THAT integral to playing. The Morshu shopkeep is funny but every time I finished a major plot beat and went to the shop he basically reset the tension as a result, but that's a nitpick.
In terms of technical stuff, while I haven't experienced the slowdown people mention, I do have to rebind my controls every single time I boot the game. The game doesn't read my Options button or Touchpad so I need to set Taunt to R3, and the game does not save this setting when I close it.
The rest I have to say is negative, and it's entirely on the combat mechanics, balancing, bosses, and encounter design. If you're into this game primarily for the aesthetic or to mess around in Training doing combos forever, then you can just get the game knowing you'll be satisfied. First and foremost, the game says it's inspired by Devil May Cry, but the only real connections are surface level given that there is no visual indication of Style being calculated at all, and taking more than 1 damage in a given encounter will tank your overall Rank even if you have good Style. The combat is significantly more focused on the Guilty Gear end of things, which means the closest thing I can compare it to is Guilty Gear Judgment, which ends up being a great comparison for both the good and bad.
That brings me to problem 2: Slave Zero X is nearly impossible without looping Gold Burst into Fatal Sync. Gold Burst, will fill your meter to the maximum on hit. Fatal Sync restores your Burst. Fatal Sync is also your ONLY source of healing outside of the rare mid-stage shop. The insane offensive and mobility options you have when in Fatal Sync allow you to deal with what would otherwise be tedious enemies by overwhelming them. Without Fatal Sync your EX options are very limited and you can regularly waste meter by dashing during normals and getting a cancel, and honestly some of your heavies are kind of bad without the EX, particularly the Air Down. There are some rooms and bosses that I think are a dozen times more difficult if you are left with no meter or Burst, and in times where I somehow get a Blue Burst over a Gold one when I thought I had fully recovered from a knockdown or gotten a Fatal Pulse instead of a Fatal Sync activation (I have never once intended to Fatal Pulse outside of Fatal Sync, needing to be neutral to activate FS has lead to me wasting meter or being hit dozens of times) I usually get mauled and die.
That goes into Problem 3: Your defensive options are woefully weak. I genuinely was saved from damage by the Clash system more than Dashes, Parries, & Ukemi combined. The dash has good i-frames but oftentimes trying to dash past some enemies or bosses will get you caught in a hitbox that's way wider/further back than the animation implies. The parry is clearly pulled from Third Strike in terms of its input/function/visual, but it missed the part where the 3S parry has a generous 10f window while I would be shocked if the window here was greater than 3f. This would be much more understandable if the "forward" input wasn't involved in a game where you can freely change direction and multiple enemies can be on either side with unsynced attack patterns; Lieutenants & Atavaka seem clearly built around parrying them to force openings but between odd timing, the short window, and how often you can end up overlapping them to the point where you can't tell if they're even facing you I was never able to consistently get the parry timing down. Ukemi is useful against some enemies in some rooms, but other enemies and bosses either lock you into combos that need to be Bursted which ruins your GB/FS looping or put you in situations where Ukemi just puts you into another attack anyway unless you instantly parry. None of your EXs seem to have i-frames, and your only option that covers both sides is the sadly slow EX Spike.
Compounding the defensive issues is just how difficult it is to read the action at times. I already brought up how the parry system completely breaks when your sprites overlap with an enemy, and that just gets worse in the rooms that throw a dozen or twenty or even more enemies at you at once. I will say that the armored enemies have clear visual tells on their strong attacks, but these can easily be obscured in crowds. Enemies with ranged attacks like guns can fire from offscreen, including the Lieutenants' massive fire waves that you NEED to parry (because every time I try to dodge through them the backend clips me). Fights that happen near corners can lead to extremely awkward-looking attack angles and juggles, enemies can be too far offscreen when the camera is locked into an arena, and fights with foreground elements are just plain unfair at times, particularly one near the end of the game in a long hallway.
All of this is compounded into Atavaka, who despite incredible buildup throughout the game and a super slick design, is one of the worst-feeling bosses I've ever fought. All of your defensive options are worthless against him besides dodging away, he WILL combo you even if you Burst or Ukemi, you have no breathing room, your parry is a hail mary at best, he WILL meaty you with his hitgrab on your wakeup, he has an actual invincible reversal, his lightning teleports are near-impossible to dodge or parry on reaction, and worst of all, the only thing you can do to maneuver him is to run. He will run at you full force if you create distance, giving you openings to get in potshots with your Light string and Ordinances until he Guard Breaks after which you can Fatal Sync to dump your damage. That is the lamest way to handle such a cool boss but it was the only one that worked