Heavy Metal Death Can

Worthy addition to the classic survival horror come back. Everything felt well balanced and rewarded good skills. The story reminded me a little of crow country with a lot of random NPCs to find, as well as a good mystery to solve. Controls felt tight and responsive. Beat the game in one afternoon.

I think this game is a pretty good, compact take on oldschool survival horror. I will say, I had to restart the game because I basically ended up with no health and no ammo and couldn't progress, but on the other hand, catching up to where I was took me like less than 10 minutes. It's a short game, even shorter if you know exactly where to go, but because of that it allows itself to put you in very nasty situations. The puzzles are all sensible and roughly as hard as a classic RE game. The enemies are lethal and there are some setups where I honest-to-goodness don't think you can get passed without using resources. I would say the only actual complaint I have is that enemy positions don't reset when you leave and enter the room, but other than that, there is enough nuance in the movement and resource management that you can get through the really tough encounters. I think the best part of the game is the backtracking and sequencing. New enemies are added at the right time and reasonably telegraphed, with some nasty surprises too. You also unlock a randomizer mode when you beat the game, which IMO lends itself well to how the entire submarine is structured. I'd say this feels …

Solid, fundamental survival horror! Love how strongly they struck the tone of the cramped, hellish submarine. I loved spending as much time with the map as we did, and it's impressive how varied and distinct the areas can feel, all being inside a submarine.

Really mostly enjoyed this up until the final boss battle, where the game's difficulty ramps up at a 90 degree angle. The room you must retrieve the sample from before starting the final boss battle is meant to drain you of all your resources or simply get you killed, filled with obnoxiously dark portions of the static backgrounds of the game that make navigating it a nightmare. Then, the static camera angles of the boss chamber are positioned in such a way that a core element (repeat pistol ammo pickup from the vendor who couldn't have just given you tons of free ammo BEFORE the fight because for some reason a barter system still needs to exist among crew members at the bottom of the ocean while everyone is counting on you to save everyone's life) extremely finnicky to reach and causes the camera to shift constantly during the battle which also makes the controls especially more abysmal during this fight. I've played plenty of survival horror games and I understand the nostalgia of tank controls and static camera angles but there's a reason they're a thing of the past. It would have been fine honestly if there wasn't such a perfect alchemy of intentionally bad elements in the last…

As a OG RE fan always looking for games inspired by the franchise, this one fell under my radar but was recommended to me. I went in without looking at any footage and was very pleasantly surprised. Great atmosphere, heavy metal music (in the name!), great gunplay, puzzles and intricate map topped with an interesting plot. Now I'm passing on the recommendation.

It was rather fun experience, but frustrating too. Main feature and flaw was that instead fighting enemies, you fight your damn camera shifting every 5m. If you would like to try such kind of challenge, then take it. Honestly I doubt if I would pick game with fixed cameras again. Nevertheless, I liked it.