You know a game's gonna be hard when you're having a helluva time just making it through the Tutorial. Fortunately, Draw Slasher is one game whose novel mechanics you gradually get the hang of, and for a short while thereafter you might even fool yourself into believing you're pretty good at it. Don't get too cocky, though. Get your guard down for more than a second, and this game knows how to hand your arse back to you, in several more pieces than it started.

Even the so-called "Easy" mode will give you a run for your money, especially if your hand-eye coordination and reflexes are as dodgy as those of the person writing these words. But rest assured: persistence can pay off, and it's in the personal rewards department (y'know, pride an' all that stuff) that Draw Slasher truly pays off. Almost every new enemy requires its own strategies to take 'em down, e.g. attack 'em only from behind, look for the ♥♥♥♥♥ in their armour, etc. Learning each of these strategies, then becoming increasingly competent at executing them, is enough to convince even the crappiest of gamers that they can make it one checkpoint further (and maybe, just maybe, get past that pesky boss once and for all).

I've alluded to the mechanics, but have yet to describe them. One of the great "gimmicks" of Draw Slasher is the fact that it began life as a mobile game, and while it shows, it still translates surprisingly well to PC. All of your ninja's nifty moves are executed by moving the mouse whilst holding down the left button, "drawing" the path from where your warrior begins his run-up to where he ends his mighty slashing blow against the foe (which can zig-zag through an enemy and thereby 'cause them multiple blows with a single strike, earning combo bonuses and so forth).

It's both simpler than it sounds, and much, much harder to MASTER than it sounds. Like all clever mobile games, though - Plants vs. Zombies being another excellent example - its success ultimately lies in that very paradox of deceptive simplicity versus actual difficulty.

Oh, and you do get to use the right mouse button occasionally too, but only to summon up special enemy-obliterating "ki" powers, which you earn by killing bucket-loads of baddies. So yes, it's a fairly traditional "arcade" game in many ways, with enough of a twist to make it something fairly fresh and modern in its own right (with all due credit to the influence of Fruit Ninja, which the game itself cheekily acknowledges in one sequence).

Aesthetically, the game is simply gorgeous. Beautiful animations, evocative music, quality sound effects, charmingly quirky voice acting and dialogue - "Stink like dead baboon in here!" - and the kind of chintzy gore which only a haemophiliac couldn't love. And who on Buddha's good earth doesn't like slaughtering hordes of evil Pirate Monkey Zombies? 'Nuff said.

Okay, so it's a tad repetitive. Like many a side-scrolling arcade game before it, new enemies are only unveiled sporadically, though the thoroughly unique bosses are frequent enough to keep even the nimblest of ninjas on their toes.

Not that the bosses themselves don't get "old" quickly when you have to fight them over and over and over again - I'm looking at you, Mr Cannonballs - but at least the game allows you to go back to the beginning of levels while still retaining all the experience you've accrued. So even if that early-ish boss is proving too much for your meagre skillz, you can at least re-confront him with more health and/or stamina than you had the last time (after you grind all the way back to him, of course)!

One major downfall of the game is the fact that the difficulty curve of the levels isn't quite incremental. The fourth boss, for example, is basically an EASIER variation on the second: one throws cannonballs which you have to dodge in real time, while the other merely plants stationary bombs for you to jump over. Quite why anyone would find the latter more challenging than the first, I have no idea. I think I beat bomb-boy on about the second try, while Mr Cannonballs killed me at least twenty times or more.

And no, it wasn't just that I was better at the game by that point, nor that I had higher health and stamina through the leveling-up process. It's simply the fact that I could take my sweet time leaping over the bombs, as opposed to panicking when two or three cannonballs were thrown at me in quick succession. So the level design does, unfortunately, leave a little to be desired.

Draw Slasher is not a long game, but it's also not one I'd recommend to anyone looking for a "casual" or "easy" gaming experience. Sure, it's not Super Meat Boy...but nor is it, well, Fruit Ninja. It's pretty hard, even on Easy level, and has the kind of mechanics which will require patience from the average PC gamer. As much as I enjoyed it, I can't help but feel that it's probably a game better suited to mobile touch-screen technology, as a mouse isn't the most intuitive way to quickly draw a line from one side of the screen to another.

Beyond this, however, it would appear to be a quality port, and there's no denying the game its more-than-fair share of charm. It also has a lot of additional Challenge and Arcade modes to give it some longevity, though how much replayability the Story mode itself has is really up to the tolerance of the individual. Don't come expecting an awful amount of bang for your buck, and you may well be pleasantly surprised.

Verdict: 8/10.

Simplistic platforming action gameplay made difficult with garbage controls. Don't bother playing unless you are a masochist. Also a mobile game. Only reason I am not refunding is because I got it for 90 cents on a steam sale. Although I am still tempted to do so.

My Playtime: 7.6h (100% achievement, finished the game)
Grindy Achievement(s): Yes (2 achievements).
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (6 achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): No.

Draw Slasher is a sidescroller action game where you control and attack your enemies by drawing a line with your mouse. It offers a lot of unique mechanics in each chapter, trying to showcase what it can do with its controls.

Pros:
- Unique levels that rely on the same control scheme
- Challenge levels to test your skills
- 3 difficulty options

Cons:
- Sometimes the line that you draw will cut abruptly, moving your character to a spot that you don't mean to
- The slow screen scrolling can make it hard to look ahead in some stages
- The volume isn't consistent; sometimes people talk very loudly, sometimes they talk very slowly

Specs
Intel Core i5-9300H 2.40GHz, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650

No.
Despite the varied gameplay, it still gets boring sometimes. Plus, it's not meant to be played with a mouse. You should play it on a phone with a touchscreen control instead.

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Draw Slasher uses a cartoonish look on its visuals, sometimes with a lot of shadows to emphasize the ninja theme. It looks a bit blurry on my device, although it's not that noticeable. The UI itself is simple and intuitive, giving all of the information that you need on the screen with no effort.

As a game that was focused on its gameplay, the story is simple. The cutscene was given a lot of work, though, considering that they are animated and voice dubbed. The main character's voice sounds weird for someone that I considered as a kid; they are hoarse and sound too made up, although it manages to sound cool just like how the character is supposed to be portrayed.

Gameplay
Have you played Fruit Ninja? It's a mobile game where you slice fruits that were thrown across the screen. Well, Draw Slasher is just like that, but unlike Fruit Ninja, you have a character on the screen, and he'll have to move to the point before you "slash" the screen to do the slicing. You can move the character by tapping on the screen, and attack by "slashing" on the screen. Surprisingly, the character moves fast, changing the game into a fast-paced one depending on your reflex. You can slice left and right if you want to do consecutive attacks, slice upwards to trigger a sharp jump, and control your character's movement in the air through the "slashing". Your character will move based on the direction that you choose.

The game is always about slicing, but it always tries something new. There is always a new mechanic in each chapter, whether it's a new enemy or a new minigame. New enemies will have certain attack patterns and weaknesses, forcing you to use your brain to figure out when and where to strike. The minigame, on the other hand, will train your ability to move your character with the control scheme - you will have to jump and dodge obstacles just to reach your goal. The game has several of these minigames and combat sections mixed in each chapter, giving a lot of variations to play.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=951754280

However, the control is not smooth. I'm not sure if it's because my mouse starting to break or not, but sometimes the line that I drew from "slashing the screen" was cut midway, forcing my character to stop in a place that I didn't want to. This can be fatal whenever I do challenges that don't give much room for error, killing me in the process. Moreover, the screen doesn't scroll until you reach the edge of the screen, and it's hard to finish stages that require me to look ahead. There is even one enemy that can attack me before the screen scrolls to annoy me more.

Length and Difficulty
I finished the game in 4.4h with most of the challenge completed. The game offers 3 difficulties in the main story mode, and I played in the easiest one. I think the difficulty is just right for me - I had some issues in some fights, but it turns out that I didn't know what the game wanted me to do. It's fun figuring out ways to slice your enemies, sometimes in a way that you won't notice for the first time.

If you are craving for more difficulties, you can do the challenge mode that can test your skills. Achievement hunters will need to finish them to get 100%. I had some issues with some of the levels, but it's not hard if you know what to do. That being said, if you are an achievement hunter, prepare to grind for ~2 hours just to get everything. It's a boring grind.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1969325729

Issues
The volume of the voice dub is inconsistent. Sometimes it's high, sometimes it's low. Moreover, subtitles only appear during cutscenes; there isn't any subtitle whenever the characters are talking on the level.

To be honest, the game interests me. It always tries to be creative with its levels, trying to showcase a new gameplay with the "slicing" controls. However, I don't think the game is good for mouse control. There was the issue about the slicing line that wasn't showing as I intended, and you also won't be able to react as fast as using a phone that has touch control with a mouse. Moreover, the game can feel boring sometimes since you just need to do the same thing except for a few enemies that you need to take special care of. I think the game is always meant for a mobile app with a wide screen and touch control, especially with its simplicity.

This is another one of those games I wish had an OK review option rather than just good or bad.

In this game you play as a ninja fighting zombies and other strange characters. You fight them by moving your mouse over them so the ninja essentially cuts them. And as you can probably gather from that description, it's a mobile port. Luckily, this seems like a decent port. There are controls designed just for PC,steam cloud support,steam achievements and steam trading cards. The game seems to run fine too. To be honest though its a game I feel would work better on a mobile since it could feel like you are actually cutting them rather than just commanding the ninja...

The art is is good and I like how you can see the enemies spawn in by their shadow. The animations do get a bit repetitive though. And in fact the entire game so far has been pretty repetitive. New mechanics are added throughout the game but the actual game play itself pretty much got boring by a couple levels in. However there are things like bosses which help make it more fun. You can also level up your character but for some reason you can't increase the damage you do, which seems like a missed opportunity. You also get magic powers called Ki later that lets you do things like freeze time. There is a story mode with full voice acting and cut scenes, challenges and an arcade with things like survival in. Therefore there is quite a lot of content for a fairly low price. But the thing is, the actual game play is basically just moving your mouse left and right constantly. But the game is still pretty fun and its pretty satisfying seeing the enemies split into 2.

So in my opinion, if you can get it on sale for cheap then I say go for it and see if you like it.

If you guys want to see some gameplay of this game feel free to click this link!
https://youtu.be/O-3lgeallp0

Draw Slasher is a 2D hack and slash game developed and published by Mass Creation back in 2016.
This game is basically a poor man's Fruit Ninja.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2198372891

And When I say poor man's Fruit Ninja am not kidding, Basically the same form of gameplay but with different elements involved.
Instead of Fruits, you get to hack down Zombie pirate monkeys. Weird concept but okay.

Could have been a very interesting idea but done poorly.

Surprised to see there is a short story which is not much of a story :3

There are a few different types of Zombies to hack slash down, at the beginning of the game this seemed like such a cool idea and should have been interesting and should have been fun.
FYI I was wrong, The game got repetitive so fast.
The art style tho cool and unique but it got dull so fast.
The color scheme of the game didn't help as well.
A 2D ninja Slash game which implemented the slashing element poorly. The attacks are weirdly inaccurate and pointless. One time one slash is enough to finish a Zombie, a few moments later that same zombie needs 10 slashes to take down!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2198372974

The summary just play Fruit Ninja on PC or Android that's free, made well and so much fun to play. Don't waste your time here.

Am not even sure that If I bought this or not. I might have been high while buying this.

Here are some more of my Reviews if you're interested..

I hope whoever designed the Gunslinger isn't allowed to work on games anymore

Terrible game, it was meant to mobile not PC at all, I've a great mouse but i really think this is touch screen also you can dizzy with the camera a lot of times... -.-' I can tell you guys a lot of games that works with mouse such as My Friend Pedro which is an awesome game and the camera keeps following you, this one you need to slash one zombie then go back and slash another one.

It doesn't work on PC, this game was meant to play on your mobile.

Draw Slasher 1/10
Heisen.

The voice acting is like a kid trying to be cool and edgy, he is trying too hard.

The gameplay feels like playing Cut The Rope on BlueStacks and gets harder after every level.

At the time I'm writing this I only made it to the second boss, a pirate zombie monkey that can't stop laughing and shooting annoying cannonballs that send you across the entire stage.

The game is challenging but I don't think I like it.

Score: 6/10 It's ok. Can't complain, it's free.

Super sweet ninja action game! It's a bit tricky getting used to the slashing mechanic using a mouse since the game is ported from mobile, but once you get the hang of it you can pull off some pretty slick moves. There is a fairly short story mode but challenging enough to enjoy it. Nice score for $2!

A funny little Indie game. Keeps you entertained for a few hours. Not that difficult, but you can play challenges if you want a real, well, challenge