Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Dec 20, 2021

  Where [i]OVERWHELM[/i] succeeds in creating an atmosphere, it fails in delivering on the premise of its gameplay. The novel concept of "a game where the enemies get power-ups instead of you!" is boiled down to cranking up the bosses' health and cramming more and more enemies into the increasingly tight corridors. Exactly [i]one[/i] power-up changes [i]one[/i] of the enemies' behavior, and the bosses' [i]never[/i] change, instead opting to up the ante by letting them spawn enemies. It's all a very cheap form of increasing difficulty, which makes the whole gameplay experience fall rather flat. Tack on additional gameplay problems, like enemies being able to freely move between rooms while your camera won't let you look between rooms, enemies' health being wildly inconsistent, and random teleporting bosses that, while adding to the tension, can frequently result in a cheap shot (I can't tell you how many times the lizards appeared right next to me and I was left with no recourse), and [i]OVERWHELM[/i] becomes a very hard recommend. Ironically, I find it rather underwhelming.
• Lurski

  Mar 26, 2023

  What a hoot! This game was ridiculously hard and merciless lots of fun! Simple run'n'gun mechanics, but you had to learn the levels and figure out a good order to go against your challenges. We managed to play the game co-op online with a friend using Parsec which worked great. Highly recommended for run'n'gun enthusiasts looking for a challenge.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 12, 2018

  Just picked this up during the PC Gamer E3 show. Immediately it has the look and feel of Downwell, but the dark, distressing feeling of any number of horror games. The music goes from sparse to chaotic in a second, and though I've only fought two bosses, I'm digging what I've played so far.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 12, 2018

  [h1]-Early Impressions-[/h1] [list] [*]Some well designed enemies, some uninteresting [*]Really good feel to the movement, very fluid. [*]Shooting is well done and easy to handle. [*]The level design is okay, pretty unoriginal? [*]The actual concept is really interesting and fun to see the evolutions. [*]When on your last life that intense 'soundtrack' I felt was uneccessary, could have had something that didn't make me take my headphones off. [*]A nice art style and good atmosphere [/list] 7/10, good for a quick cheap game
• gamedeal user

  Jun 12, 2018

  I've only spent an hour with OVERWHELM so far but it's been a heck of an hour. Getting out of the way early: This game is not long. I only have one hour logged and I've managed to kill 4 of the (presumably) 5 bosses. The map isn't particularly big and I imagine most people will be able to beat it before hitting the two hour mark. Let's talk about what this game does well, though: Atmosphere and tension. The map isn't big, but enemies are randomly positioned on every playthrough. You die in one hit, and you only have 3 lives, so you can't just comfortably zerg your way to a boss chamber and clear it. Part of the appeal of the game is that with every boss you defeat, the enemies in the rest of the game will get empowered in some way. You won't ever really feel comfortable, is what I'm saying. The game knows how to ratchet tension up. The game will pretty liberally checkpoint you in the event you do die, but each respawn brings a bit of additional issue. Your UI will begin to fog around the edges, blocking your view of how much ammunition you have. Ammo is only refilled in boss chambers and back at the central hub, so every shot counts. On top of that, your gun will begin to tick alarms when your ammo total is depleting. It's unnerving to say the least. $8 might be a bit much for a game this brief, but there's certainly something to be said about what it offers. If you're looking for a retro-styled shooter that will raise your blood pressure between every round, you can certainly do worse. THE EDIT: I finally finished the game, with 2.5 hours logged according to Steam. A couple of asterisks there, though. - The game's random nonsense gets a lot worse at the end of the game. - The game's "Assist Mode" is pretty excellent: You are not penalized for using it beyond the knowledge that you had to use it. - There is a segment near the end that can require you to die multiple times, which makes it nearly impossible without assist mode I threw in the towel after getting cheesed to death when I was 4/5 crystals and making my way to the final boss; An enemy with a specfic attack appeared as a specific location and it was practically impossible for me to protect myself. Vague, I know, but I don't want to reveal a lot. Let me be clear: There is nothing wrong with turning on Infinite Lives when you finally break down. You can still complete the game and as far as I'm aware, there's no difference in the final sequences. Considering you can turn on or turn off Assist Mode at any point in your game without resetting or restarting, I'm halfly confident in figuring there's no change in the end. Overall, I enjoyed this game. I haven't stepped back in since finished but I feel again fairly confident that there isn't much to return to: The map is cleared, the enemies are dead. If there's anything post-game I'll update this review again to mention it. Summary: Satisfying experience tempered by last-moment bullcrap. Maybe worth your money if you like the experience, but I imagine most will play, enjoy, then uninstall.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 12, 2018

  Game looked nice in the trailer. In reality it's a meh platformer with repetetive enemies and uninspired bosses. You cant even call it a metroidvania since you dont get any powerups, but your enemies do. You have 3 attempts to reach the boss, beat him, and get back to your little "hub room", and you have to do that 5 times in a row. The gameplay stays the same from start to finish, and enemies get more and more bullshit the further you progress. My favorite are the wall-climbing poison-spitting spiders which love to fall on your head, instakilling you out of the blue. This makes beating the bosses the easy part and running back to your hub harder, mostly due to pure RNG. This is definetly not worth your money, even with a 20% off.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 12, 2018

  Just beat this game. Overall, I rate it very positively, but it's not without its missteps for sure. Overwhelm excels in polish. The sound effects and visuals all play a part in the vibe that the game has, and it has a VERY strong sense of design which lends itself well to this vibe. On one hand, it's very arcadey and nostalgic, and on the other, it's dark, edgy, and scary. There were a few times during my playthrough where I genuinely jumped-- not as if there are any scripted jump scares, but the game's sounds, music, and aesthetic all make you tense to the point where when an enemy you didn't at first see jumps at you, it's hard not to be scared. It's not easy to establish that kind of fear in a 2D setting, but this game does it well. As a whole, it feels like all the components of this game, down to the music and level design, all contribute to that feeling, which gives it a great sense of unity. Also contributing to how the game feels, the player is given strong control of the character, which helps to make it hard to blame the game for the player's shortcomings. The character moves fluidly and there are pleasantly few controls which are easily learned. The game does a good job of putting the character straight into the world without much need for explanation or tutorials, and that snappiness continues on into the rest of the game. Everything happens as fast as the player wants it to, which makes jumping right back into the game after losing so hard to resist. Speaking of losing: This is not a game you can just breeze through, but it's not super difficult either. Some will definitely be left wanting more of a challenge, but I think for the size of the game and the amount of content available to the player, it takes just long enough to get good enough to beat the game. You become familiar with the world and its enemies without being annoyed by running through the same content again and again, losing again and again. It finds a good balance of difficulty. I only have two complaints. First, the ending sequence (Don't worry, no spoilers) of the game is pretty weak. It's exciting, but the stakes feel very low after a certain point and the end of this short game which could have tied the experience with a perfect bow instead left me wishing it had ended a little more satisfyingly. My second complaint is the lack of replayability. I just beat the game, and I enjoyed it enough to where I want more, but after getting all the achievements (which is done simply by beating the game) the only thing left to do is speedrun, which isn't for everyone. Tl;dr: Short but sweet. Wish it ended better, though.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 14, 2018

  Overwhelm looked really cool from the trailer, and I was thrilled by the game releasing at the same time as it was announced. However, after sinking an hour into it, the game does not hold up. The number one offense of Overwhelm, which all other offenses are tied into, is that everything kills you in one hit. You have three checkpoint respawns, that can be refreshed (after [i]much[/i] difficulty), but once they're gone, it's game over. Now, some games can pull off single-hit deaths. It's super easy to die in games like Celeste and Super Meat Boy, but each level resets immediately with no consequence. Insta-death and limited lives, especially in a game where everything kills you very, very easily, [i]do not go together[/i]. It doesn't feel challenging; it feels [i]annoying[/i], and [i]frustrating[/i]. In Overwhelm, you traverse a relatively small Metroidvania-esque world. There are five general directions to pick from the start, and each one leads to a different area with a different gimmick (wind, water, stealth, darkness, and another that didn't seem to have a gimmick now that I think about it). At the end of each area is a boss. When you kill the boss, you get a crystal, which you then need to bring back to the room you start in. Additionally, every time you beat a boss, the already-annoying enemies (because they insta-kill you, and it rarely feels like player error) get a major upgrade and get a lot tougher. Getting to a boss, killing it, and running back is already not necessarily an easy thing to do, but making the enemies able to kill you quicker and more easily is not fun progression. It's just annoying. In my play time, I was able to kill each boss (some taking multiple tries, meaning getting game overs and restarting the entire game from scratch) and return their crystals once each. I was never able to kill more than one boss in a single run, but I imagine that over time the enemies become more and more impossible to navigate or fight. Additionally, there are no upgrades to obtain. Your enemies become more and more annoying, but you still have the same basic gun (with [i]limited ammo[/i]) and melee punches (which are [i]totally[/i] a perfect fit for a game where enemies otherwise kill you in a single hit on collision). The game's progression is the world getting more frustrating around you, and nothing more. The only way to refresh your lives is to kill a boss and collect its crystal, or to return the crystal to the first room. Even then, dying is super easy, and if you lose that final life it's game over and you lose [i]all of your progress[/i]. Although, it should be of note that you can choose to restart just before a boss you've encountered. However, that's just shifting your starting position. You still need to do everything from scratch. Overwhelm is not challenging; it's the antithesis of fun. [b]And don't even get me started on the constant noise that plays when you're on your final life.[/b] Overwhelm should be re-titled as Frustrate. [b]3/10[/b] Played it long enough to give it the benefit of the doubt, but in the end it wasn't worth it. I'm thinking of refunding it, and that's something I rarely ever do. P.S. In full disclosure, there is a hidden Assist Mode, and I did not try it. I find the notion of requiring Assist Mode to make a game base-level fun infuriating.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 14, 2018

  Great game! Great soundtrack! Great boss battles! Great level design! I like everything about this game! The visuals are slick and charming and that's my favourite thing for a game to have! I love aiming at enemies and fast paced combat platforming! It's so challenging and I Absolutely love it! Edit: Plus with the new shader colour palettes makes this game absolutely amazing and one of the best metroidvanias ever! Even if you guys don't consider it, I think it is. LAST CHANCE!!!
• gamedeal user

  Jun 17, 2018

  I loved the look of this game after seeing it at E3, but it feels like it just tries to pass off unfairness as challenging/difficult design. Here's a few things I picked out that aren't to do with the main mechanic: - The player's high movement speed mixed with very tight viewport scale and random/obscured enemy placement means unless you inch through the game too carefully, you're going to take a lot of cheap deaths. Why allow the player to move quickly if it can only end poorly? A few deaths were caused from moving from one room to the next and being dead before the camera had switched to where I was. - If the game feels like you're cheesing the bosses, rather than giving them extra movement options to get even with the player, it will just teleport them somewhere else out of view, forcing you to reposition (if the whole theme of the game is the base enemies getting the bosses traits when you beat them, where does teleporting fit in other than to hide design holes?) - If the map is the same each time, and on new lives you can spawn in at bosses you've already beaten, what was the reasoning for removing all the player's map progress each life? Don't get me wrong, the movement is fun and the shooting/punch mechanic is very tight, but I refunded it as I was simply not having fun after several resets I felt weren't my fault, and could see more of them happening before I completed it.