Recent reviews by Ykd

Deservedly overwhelmingly positive. Phenomenal movement!

This is art

Genuinely interesting, hoping more comes from this dev.

I am a forever-early-access-skeptic. We have to keep in mind the game might change (for the worse, potentially).
That said, I genuinely believe Halls of Torment to be the best-in-genre Bullet Heaven game out there.

The only maybe negative I can think of is that the initial progression is relatively slow compared to it's competitors. It takes a couple runs for it to pick up speed. I personally found this to be a positive, making for a slow-burn before the power creep and corresponding dopamine really kicks in (and goes into overdrive). It started out with me not being as hooked-in with this game in the first 30 or 60 minutes or so, especially compared to other games in this genre. And it ended with me 100% -ing the game... :-)

Big recommend.

Genuinely fun concept. The community-driven global progression adds an amazing meta layer to the experience. Every game played by anybody, every map won or lost, being counted to a shared pool of progession against the enemy factions makes things feel like they matter more than just the gaming sessions in a vacuum.

I have some grievances with the balancing;
- the slow account progression, slow equipment unlocks, tediously slow upgrade unlocks with the 'samples'.
- the cyborg/robot enemy faction are more armoured than the squishy aliens, which makes armor penetrating weapons (or other good abilities) feel necessary. As a newbie this faction feels worse and less interactive to play against. made worse by the slow progression.
- weapons are all somewhat viable, but there's a very clear meta already at the higher difficulties.
- having to complete an entire set of three missions, all 20, 30 or even 40 minutes duration each, before being able to unlock the next difficulty. (of which there are 9). Climbing through the difficulties is too big of a time sink. I don't want to, or can't always, spend one and a half hours of time. And if you don't, you barely progress. The lower difficulties are way way too easy for someone with experience in shooters. Feels like a massive time gate to get to higher and more fun difficulties.
- my favorite mission type, the 20 minute defense hold-out, doesn't reward samples. The currency for crafting ship upgrades that directly influence your abilities.
- I believe enemy AI doesn't get better at higher difficulties, it's just health & damage scaling and more of the bigger and badder enemy types. Getting one-hit by a stray projectile feels more punishing than challenging. I rarely feel like I'm outsmarting the enemy/the game, without bordering into cheese territory.

The game is unpolished & buggy:
- clipping into terrain regularly.
- falling out of the map infrequently. (I've even fallen out of the space ship, the lobby map)
- enemies clipped into terrain, unable to hit them but they can still hit you.
- enemies clipped into other (dead) enemies, unable to hit them and they also can't hit you. Atleast that's kinda fair?
- UI issues, unable to ready up for games, unable to change loadouts, softlocks, unable to use abilities, UI elements not loading in, you name it.
- something with desync, making fire either deal no damage to enemies, or making the visuals not line up with the actual damage zones. This renders flamethrowers and napalm air strike, really fun aspects of the game, nearly unusable (unless you're the host of the game, I've been told).
- crashing to desktop.

Atleast 1 impactful bug per game on average (not counting the alien faction :-)).

The gameplay itself is the right balance of wacky, fun, bombastic, and yet challenging and requiring good teamwork on the higher difficulties.
Overall it has potential, but it hasn't managed to draw me in quite yet. It's at it's best with a premade group of friends. The friendly fire being this hardcore is definitely the correct decision. Without my friends online, I barely bother to start the game up.
I've had my moments of fun, and my moments of frustration, with this game as you can probably tell.

Do I recommend? Right now, soft no.
Give it a load of QoL patches, some tender love and care, and a bit more content. It has the potential to be the very best bombastic cooperative squad-based experience.

*Edited conclusion:
Used to be strongly negative since the PSN debacle and the poor community management. They have since announced to no longer making PSN accounts required. Updated my stance to only a slightly negative due to the unpolished state of the game.

One of the indie gems of 2022.

I'm not usually a fan of roguelites but this game is truly just plain fun.
The fundamental gameplay is a clear recipe for success, our entire friend-group loves the game.
The progression and unlocks are fun to work towards.
Currently pretty limited with regards to content, it's at most a couple hours before you have everything unlocked if you're actively trying to complete the collection and Steam achievements.
The price is super for an amazing little gem.

Hoping this game receives more updates, doubles the playable character cast, adds a couple more items and maps, a secret or two, and maybe a special challenge mode or run.
If this were to happen I'd gladly pay 10-15 euros for it.

Is playing soccer in an all-out physics-based brawl with rocket powered cars as fun and exciting as it sounds?

No.

It's even better.


With it's immensely low skill-floor the game is accessible to everyone and a good laugh no matter how good you are at the game.
With it's immensely high skill-ceiling the game provides incredible depth in gameplay.
There is plenty of room for expressing and improving yourself mechanically, and there is plenty of tactics and knowledge to be gathered to outsmart your opponent.

Not worth it's full price by a long shot.

Tons of cut content only accessible as far too expensive DLC for what you're getting.
It's had a ton of issues since launch in gameplay mechanics, performance, and issues surrounding the game itself.
Ontop of this now the recent controversy that most other reviews touch on.

Never the less, after the most recent patches the game is no longer immensely frustrating to play. (Better very, very late than never?)
It's actually quite fun if you're into these sorts of games.


If you can find the base game for dirt cheap on a third party site or here on Steam for a massive 80%-90% sale then you can have an alright time and it'll be worth your money.

I'm obviously biased having played and enjoyed for 1400+ hours now, if you want to know whether or not you'll enjoy it check out gameplay footage or just try it out.

The game has some obvious mechanical difference from other shooters, most importantly that the crosshair doesn't move up with the recoil of the guns but instead stays stationary (aside from a little visible kick). This means in order to be accurate you compensate for the recoil by pulling down your mouse (or controller of choice, but let's be real; mouse) down and beneath your intended target. This is very odd, especially visually, and will take some time getting used to.
Besides this the game also penalizes for movement very heavily by greatly recuding accuracy.

This game is a true blast, a serious shooter which takes thousands of hours to master but only seconds to jump in to.
Good for beginners to experts alike, with a lot of depth and variety.

Definite recommend!