Keylocker | Turn Based Cyberpunk Action

To start this review off, just know that this isn't a "DON'T BUY THIS GAME" type of review. There is a lot to like with Keylocker, but personally it just wasn't hitting for me and from what I can tell it's not gonna be for everyone. The game itself is very well animated, has nice sprite-work, cool character designs, an interesting setting, and has some pretty good music. However, the point of playing a game is to have fun. The big fun factor for this game is (in my eyes) supposed to be the combat. One thing I will say to preface the gameplay though is that you can save pretty much wherever, retry battles when you die, and healing items are fairly plentiful. So whats the problem? The game is just overbearing in its combat. Of course you're going to suck when you're new to a game, but the design here is just too much right out of the gate. For starters the combat is grid based. Often times you'll begin a fight, and an enemy will have one or more turn icons to approach, setup, or attack you. Then you react to their attacks and position based on if they're going to counter, or if you need to block/heal/setup yourself. Pretty basic turn-based rpg stuff so far right? Here's where it gets annoying though. Some enemies will have 4 turns or more before you can even do anything at the start of a battle depending on how many of them you're fighting against, so if you're not paying full 100% attention you'll miss your chance to block their attacks. Block windows on normal mode (cyber punk difficulty) feel just fair enough to where its satisfying, but the ever-increasing amount of enemy turns makes it to where you have to make sure you don't miss ANYTHING. There's no big visual indicator for who exactly's turn is coming next, so if you're fighting 2 or 3 of the same enemy you might miss the 2 second animation for the enemy that is attacking. Often in cases like this for games I will use my peripheral vision to adjust, but there are sometimes block windows that you need to use the D-pad for instead of timing a button press. So by the time you realize you're doing a D-pad block instead of a timed block, the meter for the d-pad input is over halfway empty. You'll only be able to partially block attacks in this case. Another thing that bothers me about the combat is that there's no transition between turns. An enemy will do what they do, then another enemy will immediately follow up. There's almost no breathing room unless it is your turn. You might think "this is silly just turn the difficulty to easy" or "just lock in" but I'm not a normie gamer. I've played games with timed inputs for combat plenty of times (ikenfell, paper mario, undertale, just to name a few) and never have I had combat be so encroaching and uncomfortable from the beginning. What makes things iffy for me the most is tons of enemies I'd encounter near the early game would just one or two-shot me. Failing one block shouldn't feel that punishing, because regardless of if you're forced to learn each enemies block windows and weaknesses, I can only imagine I would be forced to suffer through this tiresome gameplay loop of dying and learning and constant blocking and getting one shot through the entire game. That does not sound fun.

This a very underrated game, a hidden gem if you would call it that. First of all, the art style is magnificent, with the color palettes blending so well with the cyberpunk theme. The battles are turn-based on grids, where you have press the button at the right timing while attacking and defending... but as it happens, the default timing window is VERY unforgiving (just as they advertise it), so I recommend to use the timing assist at least in slow. The game, being in a world where music is illegal, has a banger of a soundtrack, tons of world building and character development, with a good mix of silly jokes and serious moments. All in all, if you are looking for a unique experience, this is the game for you.

This is a highly imperfect game, but it's also a powerful hit of vibes, fun, creativity, drama, and laughs. The soundtrack is fucking amazing, the characters are memorable, and you can SMASH GODS WITH GUITARS! Dunno how to sell that any better. Give it a chance.

This is exactly the type of game the world needs more of. Funny, over the top, expressive indie games with more personality than 99.9% of anything else you've ever experienced. Love the vibes, love the music, love everything.

I love this game so much, job well done!

Very pretty, just not very fun.