The premise is simple enough, you are the prince of hell, and the paparazzi has taken photos of you in your bathtub with a rubber ducky and you have to kill all the monsters that have seen the pics. This idea could lead to some great gameplay scenarios with fantastic creature design and platforming. However the game is more an exercise in frustration than anything fun.
The game throws you into a metroidvania type of map, where your constantly backtracking and discovering new areas of the map to defeat new monsters. The map design is one of the most difficult I've found to traverse through. With cluttered levels, filled with instakilling spikes, you quickly fill with frustration in trying to locate the next monster. The zoom out feature would be great if it zoomed out more, but instead you are left with a rather close up view of the map that doesn't show much of anything. To make matters worse, the platforming itself is atrocious.
Throughout the game you have two modes of transportation through the maps. In some you get to use your drill that comes along with a jetpack and a handful of other weapons, and in others you are stripped of this and must go it alone. Both have equally frustrating mechanics. When in your drill, your character feels like he is on wheels, never stopping when you let go of the directional keys. This can lead to you rolling off of a platform that you were supposed to stay on, or rolling into a spike trap. What is equally as frustrating is the use of the jet-pack. In order to use it, you must hold the jump button. Once you have jumped, if you are not already holding the button down you are unable to use the jet-pack, leading to awkward platforming sections. This is worsened by the floaty platforming which often never goes where you want to, leading to death or having to restart the section as a whole.
While by yourself, there are another host of problems that come up. The first being that you are stripped of all of your weapons, leaving no defence. You are forced to dispatch enemies by doing some light puzzle solving and dropping boxes on them. This becomes repetitive and quickly outstayed its welcome. The next issue goes back to platforming and terrible controls. In these sections you are given a double jump and a wall jump. Double jumping is simple, just hitting the jump key twice. However wall jumping is done the same way except you hold down the second press of the jump key. The wall jump is automatic and you have no control over which surfaces you wish to jump off of. This issue with this is, the distance of your jump is dictated by how long you hold down the key. So a double jump that you intended to get you further will suddenly throw you off any wall that you may have brushed up against, often doing more damage than good. This can easily throw you into enemies, or cause you to lose progression that was a chore to get through in the first place. This is exemplified by the poor checkpoint system that will more often than not put you further back than you deserve to be, forcing you to trek through the level again. Often leading you to the same frustrating death over and over again.
One of the things that this game does right however is the art style and humor. The art style speaks for itself, with bright colors and cute enemy design that is rather varied. While it can sometimes lead to a cluttered screen with environments that can be difficult to read, it for the most part serves its purpose well. The humor does much of the same, with referential and meta humor that further helps make the game over the top. Probably the best implementation of the humor comes with the mini-games you use to dispatch enemies. There are two ways to kill the 100 different story monsters, either using the weapons you have on hand, or dropping boxes on them. Once their health bar reaches zero, you are prompted with a short mini game. Winning one kills the enemy, failing does damage to you and gives them health back.
The mini games are simple which is a benefit to the game. They never outstay their welcome. One mini game has you stealing honey from a bee while it has its back turned to you, and if successful, you drop a beehive on the enemy and bees swarm the stage stinging him to death. Other mini games are as simple as three quick-time events in a row, or hitting a button at the right time. One thing they all have in common though are the over the top deaths that are a joy to watch. While they do repeat, their brevity keeps them from becoming tiring.
Every time you dispatch another enemy, they go to The Island. Here you can have different monsters work for you to give you health, money or other items. While being able to see all of your monsters working for you is cute in theory, it becomes something that is hardly worth doing. In order to reach the island, you have to quit the game to the main menu. With there being no easy way to access my rewards or the island itself in the actual game, I found myself hardly using it.
What could have been a fun game about dispatching enemies for revenge quickly turns into an exercise in tedium. The game tasks you with killing 100 enemies, however you will find it difficult to reach that goal due to terrible map design, frustrating controls and a game that unfortunately just isn't worth your time. The art design and humor do little to save the game from becoming a chore.
Pros:
-Good art design
-Cute/fun mini games
Cons:
-Floaty platforming controls
-Poor map design
-Implementation of The Island makes it pointless
-Length of the game is far too long and outstayed its welcome
-Poor checkpoint system