Kamio Recoil Review

Kamio recoil is a 2D action dungeon crawler using gunfire to move, which kind of fails to go anywhere fully exciting. Feeling like a low-tier doujinshi game, it features five characters that wield different weapons to deal damage that result in different movement styles.

Each weapon does various amounts of damage, each having more effectiveness for traversing certain areas and levels. The issue here is that the movement and level design struggles to keep a level of consistency to warrant care and attention; the levels don’t feel expansive enough to feel hectic or warrant fast paced action like Rocket Riot. The movement system feels too loose and slippery, lacking a sense of responsiveness, that make the small and rather tunnel-like levels a slog to move through.

An example of the level design going against the player movement is the third world with the underwater setting. The constant barrage of enemies and need to navigate the tunnel-like constructs requires juggling the five characters in order to beat the inevitable onslaught of a bullet hell. Which on paper sounds like compelling gameplay, but on execution feels like a constant battle against its unresponsive controls on top of the difficulty in navigating its mazes. This factors in the constant problem of fighting gravity with some of the tunnels being vertical.

This wouldn't be as big an issue if the characters didn't have limitations to their ammo as their health. Some characters are pretty much indispensable when it comes to traversing the levels. Small changes to how they move or shoot could go a long way with making this game more playable. An example of this would be allowing the player to fix themselves to a flat surface and shoot from there. This would avoid having to awkwardly shoot backwards and forwards to deal with the enemy and making your way to the end goal.

Of course, a game’s saving grace can be the boss battles. Sadly, not here by a long shot. The need to move at the cost of ammo, taking a hit at the cost of ammo and killing the boss at the cost of ammo. It’s a repeating farce of juggling between characters that are varied to the point of moot usefulness. The rocket launcher is great for attacking the boss, since it lacks maneuverability. But because of the slow moving projectile, most enemies will actually dodge it. And if that’s your last character, you’re restarting the level. As the damage is comparatively worse than every other weapon available other than pixy dust. It’s effectively worse than the laser beam attack which can/will out out damage it, due to its piercing nature, whilst still having the same kick of backwards movement.