Another game starring a cat? This is like my third one, and I get to kill rabid unicorns? Well, sign me up, then. Oh, I get to ride a hoverboard around retro 80s inspired video game arenas based around the future, everything looking so colorful, and yet empty somewhat?
Yeah, Gori: Cuddly Carnage big strengths come from engagement, when you're following the path you're supposed to. But man, it's super linear, lack of free will and exploration, then again, I can't complain. I truly did have a fun time playing this. I love the humor, art style dialogues, atmosphere, reminds me of those Suda 51 games. And yeah, you read the title right, heavily inspired from it.
Too many titles out there holding wacky premises, letting you go crazy with hyper-violence while a score system racks up points, which, actually, ramps the engagement up. This isn't like crazy good to the extent of being better than other AAA games before it, yet still does well.
Look at this cute little furball, who would want to get him killed? Oh right, mutated unicorns, and I got to see the difference between a normal one, who is running away aloof before they trip, and eventually become mass-human-murdering psychopaths, infected by a virus.
If you're asking about its story, it's kind of like some comic book you find on a thrift store, someone obviously thought it was funny and cute, but nothing indelible enough to stick around. Like, B-grade story content that sort of works while you're cruising about without paying much attention to the lack of details around its semi-open world level area. Which, btw, I love how they're presented.
To sum up the gameplay, it's a hack n slash action game where you skate rails, jump into the air all the time, and just button mash your attacks in various combos. Takes a bit getting used to, yet easy to figure out. It's not mindless game mechanics, thanks to how combat scenarios are designed.
Exploration is its weakest point, because trekking through the empty, somewhat desolate futuristic cities of Earth kind of ruins the flow, I'm literally jumping here and there, with ease of verticality, and yet, no hidden areas, no side levels to gawk on, just everything around me are vacuous visual assets. Then it hits me that this looks like a PS3 game with RTX settings on, which it kind of is, and even the stranger part, it has Nvidia DLSS and Intel XeSS, but not FSR, wait what?
It doesn't have the best settings for a game demanding as this, I'm running it with driver enabled super sampling at 1080p upscaled to 1440p, and it looks pretty decent. The cartoonish, comic book artstyle kind of make and break. But that's for the first chapter, where the next ones blow me away. I don't know, maybe it has to do with them getting most out of ray-tracing.
I'm sure you're still asking "ok, but where's the gameplay?", no worries this isn't the gameplay. It's not just air surf flexing, while riding on colorful rails, and billboards, not if you combine it with the frantic intensity of the main combat mechanics. Oh, you'll have some fun alright.
I played this on KB/M before shifting to controller, both works. You have primary and your secondary attacks, but holding the right trigger lets me do more intense attacks which consumes energy. The RT+Y breaks enemy shields, RT+X does quicker attacks, so you'd avoid the enemies. I can attack on air as well, pressing the action button finishes them when they're knocked out.
It's franatic, fast-based, but I have to keep my self constant aware of my environment, as the score system ends if I take a single hit, oh, also your board goes faster holding RT as well. There's a dodge button, but I seldomly use it. Gori can be easily cornered, die if not careful, then there's the energy meter, which if depleted can be a bummer. The gameplay really kept me on my toes.
Battles do get challenging too, like I have to precisely land on the railing, if not, I can press a button to auto fix that, but even with all the intensity going on, that's not easy to stick with. The camera aiming is a little stiff, though I can probably change that.
And there's plenty more to do, I get a rocket launcher for both AoE and singular target bombings, sometimes it's used to shoot wall hanging eyes in time to open closed pathways. Even while riding the railway or billboards, since the exploration feels tight afterward.
Chapter 1 pretty much introduced the vast majority of gameplay, chapter 2 is where the level starts to get interesting, as it'll take me inside arcade machines, big giant digital board arenas, open large skycrapper with the neon city lights, it's just eye candy around this point, and stuff to look for, like keys which open up cosmetic and other bonuses.
The story is fine, you're a cat that's trying to save his owner. She's a scientist who is trying to get into the bottom of these things, and let Gori and his friends escape while she stayed behind. Also, about those friends, quite the nice bunch. A potty mouthed hoverboard who sadly deals with a programmed kid filter, which beeps all his swears, and his 4th wall jokes. Then there's the very lax A.I. ship program, who just can't seem to catch a break.
I did mention that the visuals get better, yes, in chapter 2 they do. But, you need a really beefy PC to run this. For some reason, this turned out to be the second game I've reviewed that is eating up my hardware. Also, no FSR? Not even a normal resolution scaling option?
Lastly, I found the boss battles to be ridiculously fun. Albeit short, and kind of easy to take down, in both chapters, I would battle part of the bosses anatomy before the final showdown. Just giving an idea of what's really to come. Also, they trash talk too, like hateful kind of trash talking. Really gots the blood pumping. I forgot to mention, but you can upgrade everything.
Even his hoverboard friend, the missiles, Gori's attacks, change his clothes, even his fur color. This is a nice game in its entirety package. But, man something could have been done about the exploration, and lack of graphical settings. The latter can be patched out.
