DEAD OR SCHOOL

Love this game. It's awesome!

I have currently played through most of the Playstation version of this game (around 20 hours played) and bought the PC version because the PS version's juddering bothered me (and because I like this game enough, obviously).
The basic gameplay is about throwing you into enemy arenas, with enemies that have a variety of attacks which are melee-range, longer-ranged, or longer-ranged jumping attacks that home in on the player. There are some other types, but most of the enemies conform to these kinds of attacks. You can equip one melee weapon, one machine gun, and one launcher (typically high-powered, low ammo weapons). At its best, the encounters can feel faintly like Doom in 2D, with a combination of enemy prioritisation and quick reflexes required to avoid enemy attacks. At worst, it's a hectic mess, with some encounters pretty much requiring you to face-tank the enemies. Generally, it leans towards the middle or the positive side of this balance. The game is an unrelenting meat-grinder, but it rarely feels like a slog.
There's also an element of attrition, as you have a limited amount of ammo/durability to keep in mind. This is surprisingly well-balanced early on, with resources limited but only to the point where you can't waste ammo and might have to swap around to get through. Later on you don't have to worry so much, and it even becomes possible to mostly specialise in one weapon type.
At times the game feels like it wants you to grind, but I was never forced to while playing on normal difficulty. Often the enemies would be three or four levels higher, and I feel like damage (taken and received) scales heavily according to level difference, but outside of a couple of areas and boss fights it didn't really get in the way of progress,
Those bosses are awful, though. I liked exactly one of them so far, the third boss. The others all had some combination of tedious gimmicks and/or unfair attacks. The second and fourth bosses were particularly annoying, and I could see the former being a roadblock for people so early on.
Otherwise my issues with this game stem from the presentation. It's very clear that the artwork is lower-resolution than the 1080p resolution we are forced to run the game at. Stills contain some visible compression artefacts, but even worse are the videos which are extremely low-resolution and heavily macroblocked. And really, the game should be able to render its 3D elements at high resolutions, surely?
My personal solution is to use Magpie to upscale the game using Anime4K (not usually advised for a 3D game but this game is very light on the GPU) followed by a pass of RCAS and then FXAA. It's not the ideal solution and Anime4K will be too heavy for any GPU that isn't fairly powerful, but it's working for me.
Anyway, this game is solid and Hisako is sweet.

I did it! I Finally 100% the Achievements! For those who are reading this just to see why you didn't get the achievements Research Completed & Rescue Completed even if you completed all of them, so what I did was just exited the game (fully close) then open it again, continue the game and the 2 achievements will pop out. Also at the back of the train you can meet the people you rescued and also the souvenirs you have collected, also don't forget to talk to them you will get a souvenir and a side mission. All I could say is the game is very challenging but Fun to play! Overall it's a Great Game! Hoping the developer will make more of this game or continue the story where it involves the world and they needed Hisako Power, that kinda be cool and awesome to be honest. Hahaha...

Its a fantastic indie side-scrolling game. With its wide selection of skills and weapons, players can create a variety of builds for the main character and it has a dodge mechanic that is very useful.
The gameplay is satisfying, featuring tricky puzzles that are fun to solve. The story is average but humorous, as the main character can easily convince anyone to join her quest to go to school in the middle of an apocalypse.
My only issue with the game is the inventory sorting for skills and weapons, as scrolling through a long list of items can be a hassle.
Overall, I highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a simple yet engaging side-scrolling experience and I enjoyed completing its achievements and challenges on the game.

Tried due to an unexpected recommendation on a "hidden gems" list, and quite surprised.
It very much scratches the "get moar loot" and "make numbers go up" itches, which I wasn't expecting. Combat's simple, but quite fun and fast.
If you like a grind that's all about making numbers bigger and doing more damage? Yeah, that's here. It's not vanillaware levels of good when it comes to the combat (They kinda set the standard for good 2D combat, let's be honest) what's here is fun and serviceable.
Just don't come in expecting polish, there's a few bits of jank here and there. No deal breakers, but nothing game breaking that I've seen. Just times where I was stuck falling against a wall until I stopped pushing myself against it, that kinda thing.
Yeah, the art is overly suggestive at times, but it never goes into outright nudity/sex (Thank god, I'm not into the cute girl violated by monsters trope).
tl;dr? Kill monsters. Get loot. Make numbers go up. Brain likey.

I don't typically like hack and slash games, but this one was different. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.