K.L.I.T.T.E.R: An up and coming Glitchcore Shooter

I was on Itch.io today on the lookout for some new indies to review. considering it was Halloween season I figured to look for some horror games but of the games that caught my eyes it wasn't a horror game but an action game.

A game called 

K.L.I.T.T.E.R

This image was striking, and it promised a high octane and energetic gorefest along the same line as Ultrakill. So I decided to give it a try.

Now keep in mind, as of writing, K.L.I.T.T.E.R is only a demo meaning a work in progress. so keep take everything I Saw from the perspective that it will get adjusted and polished as it goes along.

Let's start with the games look. The game touts itself as 'glitchcore' I didn't know what that meant so I googled it and it means this:

And from my playthrough I can definitely say the game has that energy about it. The games visuals are a beautiful mishmash that feels like Ultrakill huffed Jetset Radio spray paint fumes. this game is a beautiful mishmash of sounds and colors that absolutely lights up your brains dopamine centers.

The music reminds me almost of hotline Miami, meaning it's loud, proud, and urges your body to produce adrenaline. Gameplay wise K.L.I.T.T.E.R plays a lot like Ultrakill down to the keybinds. the controls are nearly identical, there's even a parry. although that's your "Melee" By pressing (Default) "F" you swing a sword which can kill enemies, and even do ultrakills projectile boost with the shotgun. if it can parry enemy projectiles? I'm not sure. I've tried and never gotten a result but a parry seems like such a core mechanic for a game like this, though that might just be my Ultrakill poisoned brain expecting it

. As for how the controls feel they're nice and tight. buttery smooth. Which is a requirement for a game like this. the main difference from K.L.I.T.T.E.R's movement from Ultrakills is that, in Ultrakill you have a single jump and three dashes. in K.L.I.T.T.E.R? You have not one not two but THREE jumps and dozens of dashes limited only by this stamina bar under your health.

Once this runs out you can't do either but it takes a LOT to fully deplete it, you can basically fly for short distances. weapon variety? It's ok. you get a shotgun, the worlds slowest rocket launcher and a rifle. but what gets me are the alt fires(Mouse 2) which are either useful or really bizarre. starting with the former. The rocket launchers Alt fire does... THIS  

Yeah not sure what to call this, when you alt fire it sends these "Ripples" out that works great on big groups and is basically the only thing I use the launcher for. The rifle you can hold to charge, either giving rapid fire or a goddamn anime bigass lazer ball attack. The shotgun? When you alt fire.

It spawns a ghost... yeah idk why that happens either but it's actually pretty useful, the bubble around it stops everything caught within it which gives you lots of time to kill anything inside or make a quick escape.

 Switching weapons often is encouraged, you have a style meter up at the top which I honestly can't tell if it serves a purpose. the game doesn't have a results screen like Ultrakill does at the end of the level. the only possible purpose I've found for it was this Ultra ability which you unlock seemingly at random which only makes you faster and restricted only to Melee attacks, yeah I only did this once because I found it to be less effective at killing the enemies than just using your guns.

 But Now onto the cons. First being the level design. The games levels are eclectic messes in the bad way. I find several of them outright lack linear paths which resulted in me getting lost and trying to go somewhere that didn't really have a purpose when i was just supposed to kill all the enemies to open the door. The worst offender is the third level where you're supposed to fight and navigate THIS:

These crooked, floating platforms that lead to a death pitfall that you're supposed to kill enemies on. This was where I had to put the game down because I just couldn't get past it.

 Admittedly it could just be a skill issue on my part, but it doesn't help that the games tutorial is also kinda messy. I found the tutorial was just more confusing than anything else and made me less clear on what to do. It accomplished telling me what you COULD do. like how using "Scrl down" you could stab yourself at the cost of health to gain a temporary increase in shooting speed. but beyond that I just had to wing it to get through. I found just playing the game on it's own is better than the tutorial just because the language is hard to understand. I assume that english isn't the creators first language in which case, I get it. I'll be real I've been speaking english 20 years and I couldn't tell you a damn thing about HOW it works. but regardless of the language the tutorial could use some polishing up.

 As for enemy variety, I find the enemies honestly look cool and have really nice almost ps2 esque designs similar to this Artist Jumpbreak:

(https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/922849)

(Honestly I love how these guys here look)


But due to the games design it can be hard to even see the enemies sometimes as they blend into the walls.and honestly considering this is "Glitchcore" that might be intentional.

 Still overall I found K.L.I.T.T.E.R to be a super fun experience. It could use some work but already it showing a lot of promise and there's definitely a lot of fun to be had here and I look forward to how it progresses and evolves over time. For now, I give K.L.I.T.T.E.R a 6/10.