DEAD OR SCHOOL

Tremendously entertaining title.
A Metroidvania with all the quality of life things it should have: levels in which everything can be obtained on the first pass (and can be returned to from the hub if something was missed), a proper map, fully shown, travel between save points, etc.
Reminds me of a 2000s game in all the best ways, with its mix of 2D and 3D cute art. Story is rather typical, but that too, gives its own charm.
The weapon and upgrade system is entertaining, though there are not enough Skill Points in the game to max out all three, which is a bit of a bummer.
There are A LOT of minigames, some that I could've done without, but it wasn't too bad. The community came through on the more unreasonable ones, and the dev did answer questions. Kudos there!
The collectibles are visible, which is good and novel, loved seeing them clearly marked on the map.
Overall, reach for the surface, girlies!

I won't lie, it's rough around the edges. The story isn't especially deep, and the characters ramble on interminably. The stages are pretty samey and the geometry of the terrain can screw you over in so many ways.

HOWEVER!

I had a really great time playing this game! The combat is simple, but smooth. The music is pretty darn good, especially when you're in a hectic boss fight. And the boss fights themselves are all fairly unique and fun. Levelling up your weapons and adding to your skill trees is satisfying. There are fun little puzzle and challenge rooms scattered around the world (I wish there had been more). Oh and the title is still so stupid that I can't help but laugh every time I see it. In a good way.

All in all, it's not something I'd have ever thought I'd get 28 hours of enjoyment out of, but here we are. It should actually probably be more like 20 hours, but I didn't realize that fast travel existed until like 80% of the way through. That's my bad.

Hack and Slash...not what you think.....
+ good basic skill system
+ good music
+ mixed genre: plattformer, riddle, hack and slash, shoot em up etc.
+ skills needed
+ not so good enemy placement for the Player
+ engaging gameplay
+ much loot
+ interesting skill, weapon and Bonus system
+ aiming is good
+ easy to understand story
+ your train it da Man!
+ subway action
+ cool female lead
+ done with low budget, but still charming in its own way
+ feels like a "Highschol of the Dead" Solo-Hack-Slash-Action
+ 2.5 Graphics
+ cool interactive camera
+ B-Movie Boss Sequence!
+ sometimes feels like a souls Game?
+/- Graphics look a bit weird sometimes
+/- some ppl whine that many encounters are impossibly hard. Nonsense. Its more player skillissue (you can manage with timing, dodging, make right weapon choices and use the terrain to your advantage)
+/- Melee Attacks are difficult to land in the endgame (only with certain risks), but you can manage!
- some really weird bugs (fire while crouching is not buggy, standing on wacky terrain)
- many bugs, but still only 1% of the bugs that Assassins Creed Origins has
- bugs can hinder your firing at times
- skill issue is gonna get you killed fast
- some missing explanation with the bonus feature
- some missing qoL feature
- I hate RNG skill ability rolling
- translation is very misleading and hinders your synergy build across weapons for your build
- no 4k support (because the game is also old)
Conclusion:
Some ppl just wanna complain about the bugs, difficulty, or design of this game. To be true its a bit wonky at times, but mostly when you cant do it. its just skill issue here. Everything the game has thrown at me was pretty much learn and do it. Game is pretty much enjoyable as it is. Some complain about the enemy variety, it has at lease more enemy variety then some AC games, thats for sure. The Game is charming and pretty much enjoyable with its hack and slay, riddle, plattformer thingies and so on. The story is a little bit drawn out, but not disturbing. You can fiddle around with skills and builds a lot. The beginning is a little bit difficult, because many things are not explained. For example how the skill system or item system works, because you will have to find out. Intended or not, thats the question. Anime optic is ok, missing 4k support. The small team did a good job with variety in weapons and skill system. The Music is banger and the Devs did well with a limited budget. I hope for next installment!
Score: 90
13/10 lol Zombie minigames XD
13/10 Apocalyptic Maiden!
1337/10 School must be the ultimate paradise

This is a good game, especially the game design: solid weapons, solid stages design. Although there are several minor bugs, it was not game breaking. Overall, I like the game, and having fun with it.

I think I have one more level left of this game and I think I am read to review. Not a metroidvania, but it kinda is, just missing the, IMO, blind exploration. The game has some ecchi fan-service and I feel the art was hit or miss sometimes, but nothing to hate. Overall I enjoyed my time, but I think I'd rate this mixed, mainly because I feel like spam was quite common.
The spam that pissed me off the most was the fucking bombs! If I hear one more timed explosive I may explode myself! It would be one thing if the bombs could be used on the enemies, but no they are immune to their own explosive damage. I actually had a add-on that chucked grenades, I threw it in the trash the sound was pissing me off. Why do devs have to make bomb type enemies the most fucking annoying! Dev if you are some reason reading this, COOL IT ON THE BOMBS, if you make another game like this.

A hack’n’slash game set in a post-apocalypse world where humans have been driven underground due to a mutant war. You play Hisako, a girl determined to get to the surface to start a school so that she can have a normal life.
Everything about this game is good, but not great. The combat doesn’t have a lot of depth, but it is still fluid. You have three weapons, but you will either concentrate on swords or machine guns, while the heavy gun is mostly ignored, because it is too slow and too limited in ammo to use on anything but slower bosses. Upgrading your weapons does make you feel much more powerful, but it costs a lot of in-game resources and you might have to spend several hours grinding throughout the game. The controls are fairly responsive, but there are sections of the game where they are not responsive enough. (Also, there was at least one boss battle where I couldn’t cling to overhangs making it impossible to win. I just had to die and hope the glitch didn’t happen again. It didn’t.) I did like the characters and the art, but might fights had the camera zoomed out so much to enjoy it.
Finally, a couple of times, including the penultimate fight, one of the characters would warn me that I was about to die and in doing so covered up my character, making it more likely that I was going to die. I didn’t, but it was frustrating at the time, although funny in retrospect.

Buy this when it's on sale.
Ok, to get the elephant in the room out of the way: this game is built around fan service. You need to know that going in. the fact every woman in the game has a DD chest with skin-tight shirts and apparently no bras (maybe the technology to create them was lost when humans went underground...), the ASMR-like animated stills as part of the cut-scenes linger a little too long (there's even some scenes you see loop, but can;t speed past), the game's low-hp mechanic called "damaged clothing" where you get boosts to stats and mods, the pinup modeling in some of the scenes, all of it. I can say I haven't seen anything outright lewd that may cause those who don't want X-rated games to be weary, but this game is mature for sure. I'm not opposed to fan service, but I do think it goes a little too far.
With that said, let's talk about the game's art, story, and mechanics. I'll start with the weakest link.
Story:
This game's story is barely there. It essentially exists as a reason for the main protagonist to wear a school girl's uniform and go on an adventure. There are plot holes, really (really) bad Japanese to English text translation, and one stereotype and cliche after another (young ditzy girl who thinks 30 yr. old woman is too old, everyone's a damsel in distress except the protagonist, nothing matters except the wishes of the main character, every female in distress looks like they're modeling for a Wifu calendar, etc.). All you need to know is that the generation of kids the main character is a part of are looking for something better above ground and Hisako (the main character) is making it her mission to make this better world happen nearly single-handedly. You can cringe past this and get the (small) nuggets of good storytelling; yes some do exist. The one positive thing about there being so much Fan Service is that the game is filled with strong-willed women. I am a big fan of a strong female protagonist and by game design, it's built in here. It is a disappointment that the story wasn't more fleshed out. If I had access to the dialogue files for certain scenes, I would love to fix some of the plot holes and bad translation.
Art: I am a sucker for anything that uses Anime and manga-style art as the base and Dead or School brings it in spades. While some of the animated stills linger a little too long in Fan Service, a lot of them, as well as the overlays are done well. The actual game rendering is nice too, from dystopian backdrops to the character and monster designs, this game is solid in the art department.
Game Mechanics: If you like Metroidvania style play, it's all here: multiple weapons, platforming, backtracking, item collection, weapon mods, Oh the weapon mods! I've only been playing a few hours and I have dozens of them. You can sell the ones you don't want too. You have a skill tree which grants you boons not just for the specific weapon styles you're using (melee, light gun, heavy gun), but for other mechanics, like stamina, HP, and strength. You can even swap out weapons of the same type if you have different play mechanics you want to use. There are a couple of questionable things here though. For one, swapping out weapons can only happen at save points, this means there's little reason to keep more than one (maybe two) of a weapon type, especially considering you can remove and re-apply mods at save points. If weapon swapping could be done anywhere, this would make keeping more weapons feasible. Secondly, the melee weapon has an "ammo" capacity. This puts you in a corner if you run out of ammo for the other weapons you have, and there are situations where toy are forced to fight. I haven't gotten into a situation where all my ammo is gone, but why even have the melee weapon have a capacity? Thirdly, the customization menu is unnecessarily complicated. The main UI has all the options (equip, enhance, mod, sell) all in the same place, but can be a bit confusing at first. The only real gripe I have is the "save points" only save your progression through the levels. They don't act as waypoints you start from if you die or reload the game. This, in my opinion, is a mistake and a missed opportunity. This requires a lot of backtracking simply when you die or are playing again after stopping for a time. Aside from that, there's nothing really bad I can say about the mechanics (I've played a few hours at the time of this review).
To summarize:
Story telling: really Bad, but at least there's a strong female protagonist.
Art: pretty nice
Game-play mechanics: Fantastic. The breadwinner here.
Fan Service: A Lot. A Little too much if you ask me (some cringe moments), but nothing X-rated.
I personally don't think it's worth $25 in it's current state, but I picked up my copy for $10 and I'm thoroughly entertained. I recommend this game. And hey, if you like hot girls with tight cloths kicking ass, bonus points.