Slayers X Review (EShop Transfer)

Fans of games with unique storytelling may be familiar with Outlawed hypnosisan interesting project from a few years ago that aimed to simulate an alternative take on the social environment of the late 90s Internet. Although Hypnospace Outlaw will receive a proper sequel with the upcoming Dreamer, Tendershoot decided to give waiting players a more unique spin-off release that takes things in a different direction. Named Killer X: Final Consequences: Revenge of the KillerThis classic style boomer shooter launching on PC and Xbox in 2023 And something like bears some narrative connection to Hypnospace Outlaw. It’s a good game on its own, and while it didn’t leave us ‘wow’, we’d still recommend checking it out.

Slayers X’s story is quite engaging because it essentially has two levels. First, you have the premise: this is the game in the universe that Zane Lofton from Hypnospace Outlaw referenced. He basically designed this with the help of a friend, so the ultimate experience you get with Slayers freedom to express yourself. This leads to the second level of narrative, the ‘in-game’ plot. You play as “Big Z,” an X-Slayer in training who is forced into action when the monstrous Psyko Sindikate attacks his town, killing both his mother and mentor, and kidnaps one of his fellow X-Slayers. Thus, he sets out on a journey of revenge, killing many bad guys along the way as he fights to free his friend.

There’s a kind of childish and absurdly irreverent humor on display here that (at first, anyway) can be quite charming. The sheer ridiculousness of your protagonist calling his enemies “dirty asses” or shouting “You’re stupid” as he hurls them into a fine red mist adds to the initial experience. There’s a lot going on, but this type of comedy gets old pretty quickly. After that point, it starts to have the same energy as your mid-30s colleague who brags between puffs of cigarette smoke about how he still ‘gets away’ with being invited to the party by teenagers. local high school prom. In small doses, crude, childish humor can be funny, but there comes a point where it feels like it’s purely for shock value and starts to get gross.

Divisive jokes aside, Slayers X still has the bones of a solid, if unspectacular, boomer shooter. You wander through a brief campaign that tasks you with exploring self-contained, maze-like levels filled with enemies, health and ammo as well as secret rooms to explore . During this process, you must manage dwindling resources, use cover effectively, and ensure that you’re using the right tool for the job.

All the expected staples of a diverse gun arsenal are present and accounted for, and you’ll have to quickly decide whether the situation requires unique target power of the Glass Blasta (shotgun) or something like the crowd control ability of the Sludge Launcher (grenade launcher). There’s a decent array of weapons on offer here, following that line neatly making you feel like you have plenty of options without any one weapon overlapping too much in your niche other.

The levels are satisfying to explore and the movement feels tight enough, but perhaps Slayers X’s biggest shortcoming is that it feels like just another bog-standard shooter. Aside from the irreverent humor of the early 2000s, Slayers Fashion police benefits from its unique and bombastic premise. Ion’s Rage has the difference of being a truly new game built on the famous Build Engine. Earthquake is one of the best games ever made and a standard-setter for 3D shooters. What does Slayers X have? Poop jokes. If all you’re looking for is a fun new boomer shooter for your Switch, then Slayers X isn’t necessarily an explosive shooter. bad choice—the simple problem is that there’s no shortage of games you can play that do the same things, but better.

And while this might be a bit confusing, Slayers X feels like it also really needs some gyro controls to help with aiming. This issue isn’t unique to this game, but the movement on the Switch Joy-Con stick is simply inadequate for a game that requires such a level of precision and quick reaction. Playing in docked mode with a Pro Controller is a better experience, but this assumes the player Have Professional controllers and even then, motion controls will deliver a superior experience. To reiterate our previous point, other genre entries have done this better on the Switch by including motion controls, and the lack of them here makes Slayers X feel like a much weaker experience.

Luckily, the visuals are up to par—Slayers X feels like an authentic artifact from that era. While we’d like to see a bit more biome diversity (cheap apartments and sewers tend to blend together after a while), it’s still nice to see a charming mix of 3D environments simplicity and detailed 2D patterns. Everything runs at a smooth frame rate, and special mention needs to go to some of the FMV cutscenes; they have cheap production quality and attractive low resolution, giving it a realistic feel without being too cheesy.

Conclusion

Slayers The levels are fun to explore, the gunplay is entertaining, and the jokes can be funny in small doses. Little things like the increasingly amusing sense of humor and the lack of gyroscopic controls drag this game down a bit though, while the core gameplay feels a bit too vanilla. We’ll give Slayers It’s pretty good, but it’s not a prime example of the genre.