Tesla vs Lovecraft

Another top-down twinstick shooter from the makers of Crimsonland. You face off against hordes of monsters (hundreds on screen at a time) picking up a variety of weapons spawning in from basic pistols and shotguns up to lightning guns and laser pistols, plus powerful special abilities like mines, force push and exploding pigeons. Killing enemies gives experience to unlock perks, which range from boring percentage improvements to damage, up to bouncing bullets and backwards firing. The game is designed to be played in short bursts - each level will only last a couple of minutes at most. Due to the way unlocking perks can multiply the shots you're firing, there would be no point carrying on past this point; you either die early or become an unstoppable killing machine. The game does a very good job of letting you become obscenely powerful and then stopping before it gets boring, sending you on to the next level. There are also persistent upgrades unlocked by finding crystals within levels, so even losing can give you some progression. As with other games by this devloper, the gameplay is extremely tight and responsive. You won't find other twinsticks that control any better or feel more satisfying to will the world with explosive falshy lights. However, if you're not into this genre you won't find anything for you here since that's literally all there is. There are only really two complaints. Firstly, the random nature of drops and perk choice removes some of the skill. If you get poor (or no) weapons early on, it can be simply impossible to win, while having your first drop be an epic tesla shotgun will make any level a walk in the park. The second problem is that you're encouraged to find parts for your mech to activate a superpowered mode, but by the time you've found it it can often feel like a downgrade compared to your upgraded regular weapon. These are fairly minor complaints though, for what is a great little game.

... but I'm not sure about other people. In contrast to twin stick shooters such as Nex Machina or the good old Geometry Wars, it quickly becomes noticeable that instead of skill, TvL is all about the grind and RNG. The two or three times I died during the few hours I played (finished the first difficulty level and a few more levels on the next one), it was usually because of the game giving me only low-tier weapons. And to buy upgrades, you simply must play the same levels over and over and over. So it's good that there are like 20 of them. Enemy variety however isn't that great. But it's certainly charming, probably especially amusing if you play it Co-op for a bit. And so at a discounted price, I think it's alright for anyone looking to waste a bit of time. But if you want a meaningful challenge, I'd go with something else.

The good reincarnation of the old school crimsonland system - kill or be killed, and nothing else. Brilliant game.

Fun little twin stick for the first little bit. But it quickly becomes a boring grind fest that's stupidly heavy on RNG luck and riddled with a terrible and slow farming mechanic that feels like on of those terrible pay to win microtransction mobile games that takes years to get most of waht you want/need unlocked. Pick it up for a buck, give it a few hours, then toss it into the trash bin. We won't even get into save game corruption . . .