ULTRAKILL is ULTRA-GOOD | 2022 Impressions
Originally published to Backloggd July 2022 — Views expressed are for a previous version of the game, which may not exist due to nearly 3…
Originally published to Backloggd July 2022 — Views expressed are for a previous version of the game, which may not exist due to nearly 3 years of updates since. Publishing this version of my review is simply for archival purposes.
ULTRAKILL will test your reflexes and your FPS instincts more than any other game in the genre you’ve probably ever played. It’s not for the faint of heart… but the gameplay loop is so fun, it’s totally worth it.
While I overall recommend Ultrakill, in my thoughts, it’s difficult to do so and here’s why. On one hand, it has some of the most satisfying, engaging, and thrilling gun play of any first-person shooter I’ve ever played. On the other hand, what it requires of you as its player to succeed, even at the normal difficulty, is some of the most aggravating nigh impossible tests of skill I have ever played.
Let’s just get the latter out-of-the-way first. I’ve beat DOOM Eternal on Nightmare. I’ve played and beaten multiple From Soft games. Needless to say, I am familiar with playing and beating difficult games, and I get enjoyment out of overcoming challenging or insurmountable feeling odds. That type of difficulty is certainly here in ULTRAKILL, which made my experience difficulty wise feel very familiar as I played through the first few stages and defeated their bosses. But then later, I encountered V2 for the first time…
That dude wiped the floor with me. Time after time, after time. There wasn’t anything I could do. The fight would start and end quickly, or would start, I would run and dash around like a hunted animal, and then I would eventually die. There’s seemingly no pattern to the move set, it feels as though you’re just hunted beyond your capabilities. You have to be better than V2. As ambiguous as it is, that’s it. It was so frustrating for me that at one point, I looked up a YouTube video of someone fighting V2 to see if it was even possible. It was, but not in a way I had ever thought of before.
That’s when I learned that ULTRAKILL, in its own way, expects you to know how to “tech-chain” through your weapons to maximize damage. It expects you to understand and have MASTERED dodging and dashing. Watching videos of others pull off a handful of techs-chains is visually and mechanically impressive, and look incredibly stylish, but ridiculous to pull off and put into practice in your own gameplay… plus, there’s no organic in-game way for the player to learn about these techs unless it’s by sheer accident. This game has been touted by the dev to be an FPS DMC… if that’s the case, if these tech-chains are going to be kept in the game, it’s my wish that they would take another page from the DMC book, and have all the tech chains/combos in a menu somewhere.
So, the mastery that this fight (and some subsequent fights) requires of you is absolutely insane, and in my opinion, should not be at the normal difficulty. It’s just not fun, and if your play style is married to any other boomer shooters, you won’t have a good time being forced into ULTRAKILL’s tech-heavy play style, which feels unnecessarily shoved down your throat at these various “skill checks” or boss battles in the game. The core of my complaint is: How can I successfully play every other section of the game flawlessly, but fail to beat these boss battles? It just baffles me.
BEYOND, this complaint about the difficulty, I have had an amazing time with the game. The sense of speed you get moving around is incredible, and it’s always satisfying getting that ULTRAKILL rating, as you progress through the “Devil May Cry” style/kill-o-meter. It’s also satisfying to poke around the levels and find secret encounters, rooms, items, and more, and that’s definitely going to add to the replay-ability of everything on top of the satisfying gun play.
The theming and the narrative are also a huge draw for me. I love the “Hell is full” tag line. I also really appreciate the absolutely electro-metal soundtrack and the chilling sound design. Not to mention the slow motion time dilation coming and going, blood flying everywhere, zipping around the room… it’s all super well done, and very impressive for a game in its Early Access phase. Fighting enemies in these encounters as fast and efficiently as I can, is definitely the bread and butter of this game, and I am eager to play much more of it in that regard. The way these play out are the sole reason I might recommend this to any lover of FPS games.
But again, it’s just odd that I can do SO well in these encounters, have so fun, killing a room full of enemies with flying colors and S/ULTRAKILL rankings, but then struggle so deeply with these “skill check” based bosses… there’s got to be some kind of tweaking they have to do somewhere to rebalance things. Maybe I’ll get better if I simply play more of the game, but as it stands, I don’t think that’ll change anything. If nothing changes in the end, I will still have and appreciate the “house-rules” that I can change on a moment's notice to god mode myself through if I just feel like giving up on those ridiculously hard battles.
And those are my impressions, so far, of what’s available in the current Alpha Version of this game as of July 2022. I’ll be sure to update my rating and my review as more content gets put into ULTRAKILL, but I don’t think I’ll be doing that until its official 1.0 release, in the hopes that things will be fully fleshed out, and properly balanced. But regardless, I’m certain that the finished release will be a great time, and I highly recommend you pick it up, if it sounds interesting to you.
Originally published at https://backloggd.com.