THE CITADEL is a hardcore, brutal old-school shooter full of action that's a throwback to the 90's classics that we all love.
Fight through 6 Episodes of 30 action packed levels (and an additional 6 secret levels). Face off against 6 fearsome bosses.
Carry 14 different types of weapons, with obliterating secondary fire functions. Make the world tremble with 3 types of single-use special weapons.
・Unlimited Continues.
・You can continue trying until you break. Hub areas serve as respite if you find the episode to be too difficult.
・Completely skill based: no cheap Hitscanner, all projectiles. You live as good as you dodge.
・Huge enemy variety and diversity. From axe throwing cultists, to suicide drones, to mecha tanks, and flamethrower troopers.
Steam User 392
What do you get if you cross Doom, Wolfenstein and an Anime waifu? You get The Citadel.
Feels more like a combination of Brutal Doom, Hedon & Project Warlock though. Shooting stuff is fun, the anime aesthetic is downplayed and about the only issues it has is lack of visual variety, performance problems and it's kinda short.
Otherwise, it's damn good stuff, sir.
Full video review:
Steam User 49
If gore or seeing animated, stylised, cartoon women being shot up in a doom-style gib and weapon system is not for you, do not play this game. You will not like it.
That aside...
The Citadel is an interesting game.
Coming into it, I expected some sort of Doom/Wolfenstein/Marathon style clone with anime girls.
I got that.
What I didn't expect to experience was the oppressive, almost stifling atmosphere of the game.
And I don't mean that as an insult - coming into it, I expected the gore, but the way it was done was in a way that genuinely disturbed me. While I am not sure this was the intent of Doekuramori, it definitely heavily played into this game.
In the same way that franchises such as 'Alien' or the first two 'Dead Space' games could genuinely disturb you with their visuals, the gameplay of fighting these possessed 'anime girls' and hearing their screams and explode into gibs has a deeply unnerving, perhaps fatalistic feeling each time.
I distinctly remember killing the first of the more armoured soldiers who carry an assault rifle. Blasting them apart with my pistol, a woman's scream could be heard as their body broke apart into bits and pieces, a forlorn expression on the woman's face with her helmet torn off from the attack. At this moment, the oppressive music, the quite dark visuals, and the sound design all came together to give me this extreme sense of dread.
It was a feeling that I hadn't really experienced in any game for a while. It wasn't sexualised, it wasn't some sort of fetish or anything of the sort. It felt like a matter of fact in this dark universe where you play a Martyr attempting to defeat some sort of old, ancient deity that had possessed your comrades and even the 'angels' you were supposed to follow and serve.
I think that the game needs heavy optimization, and the third, hardest difficulty is not easy to find - I haven't found it myself yet. And the second hardest difficulty - devotion, I believe - is not terribly hard once you've got a couple of hours' experience in the game.
Optimization and the general gameplay are some of its weaker points.
However, the enemies, environment, visuals and audio all come together in this strangely haunting visage of a very dystopian world. This game has heavy HR Giger, GiTS, and perhaps EYE Divine Cybermancy or Nechronica vibes to it, as another review mentioned. The gunplay - taking your powerful weapons and blasting apart your former allies in shocking ways - really hits this home.
The boss fights are also something regrettably quite dull, and seem to not serve as much purpose as they should outside of a single boss, the third I believe.
To conclude, this isn't a game that everyone would be comfortable playing. It requires a strong 'stomach,' as there are a great deal of 'horror' themes that may make you very uncomfortable from the get-go. However, The Citadel is a very unique game that goes for some controversial, unsettling, but very thought provoking gameplay and environment design that almost tells a story of its own. I really hope to see more from Doekuramori and to see them either improve Citadel further or move onto another project. It would be very enjoyable to see more of The Citadel's universe.
As a final note, those attacking Doekuramori about this being 'guro' or 'pornographic' are unfairly targeting this developer. I can understand people finding this game unsettling or disturbing, but from what I can see, that's the point.
Steam User 24
If Japanese anime version of Rise of the Triad (1995 release) had a baby with Bungie's Marathon then this would be that game. It's slightly buggy but runs fairly well in Windows 7. This game restored my faith in FPS games and belief that something new and interesting can still be created. Some of the level design shows aspiration to be something like the original Doom but there really isn't Doom or Wolfenstein 3D feel to this game.
Controls fine as long as you don't touch the default bindings. All the basic settings are there but might be slightly buggy at times. Mouse sensitivity is fine to adjust.
Music is quite depressing but majority of it fits the theme of this game.
Graphics are very heavy especially when you blow up a room full of opponents. Floor will be literally filled with grotesque body parts of anime girls. Also the visual design is little boring but that's kind of expected. Only one man made this game.
Japanese need to make more FPS games on their own terms. They should just forget imitating western games and make their own from ground up. That stuff would be so good.
Steam User 49
A Waifu on a mission to defeat mind-controlled soldier waifus, Angel waifus, and a God waifu.
The level design, in terms of both aesthetic and gameplay, is a little strange and muted. cramped corridors and small arenas, broken up with some sections having floating skyscrapers,buildings and platforms. Visually when you're indoors there's nothing but grey and outdoors is grey set against void space.
A bunch of odd but novelty design choices:
3 player resources you'll need to maintain as you carve your path through the levels, Health, Energy(stamina?) and Wellness. Wellness dictates you maximum Health and Energy, depletes each second.
Energy is consumed by sprinting, melee swings and double jumping.
Health is pretty standard. Each can be restored by insta-use floor items (expect Energy which regens), or consumable items you can hold wthin inventory. Consumables including ammo can be purchased at vending machines or a waifu vendor, who sometimes appears in levels.
I like the care the Dev(s) have taken with reloading. Some of the weapons reload by mag and some like the Magnum and Shotgun feed by individual cartridge, which required you to press R (reload key) repeated, novel at first, but by episode 2 I was frankly sick of mashing the reload key, and stopped using the magnum and shotgun.
Special mention goes to the animations though, as the game differentiates between a weapon with a bullet in the chamber and a completely empty weapon and plays animations accordingly.
Thumbs up for having alt fire modes on some of the weapons, but there is also ADS which I'm not sure the point of. I'd rather just bind the Alt fire the right mouse, and only use ADS for the Whalerifle sniper.
The first and third Boss fights and the mission "Pitfall" are sudden difficulty spikes, since the levels are alittle to confined, so it's alot of Bullet Hell style spam in a small space on top of Bullet Spongey Bosses. Abit of an annoyance, but not a huge deal breaker.
Overall I'm having fun, I'd like to play more of these Waifu FPS games. Half-Orc Waifu in Hedon, and (Cyberborg?)Human Waifu in The Citadel.
Edited above:God was not a Waifu.
Edits: Beat the game within 4 hours, over all pretty fun, but the level design gets more strange as the game goes on. I've also had a couple of crashes during Episode 4.
Steam User 13
It's pretty clear the Developer was a fan of Nechronica when they made this game.
The Game is a pretty serviceable retro shooter in the vein of Doom, ROTT, and Marathon, as no doubt EVERYONE has pointed out.
What you might not know however is the sheer amount of unsettling atmosphere the game has.
First off is the fact that everyone you fight are cute anime girls who Explode, burn and die in the most goriest though surprisingly bloodless ways possible. Sprites explode into almost lovingly detailed chunks that can then be kicked around as they slide around the floor. The Level architecture is almost Escheresque in it's creativity despite the wallpaper repeating almost to the point of nauseum. The game is as much a platformer with insta death spikes, laval and bottomless pits.
My one real complaint however is how non threatening the enemies are. In fact 90% of my deaths in the game came from platforming mishaps. On their own their designs and fighting patterns are sound, but I feel like enemy encounters aren't designed around how well each enemy type would synergize with each other. Doom is a good example in which monster types are designed to work together to keep constant pressure on the player. I honestly never felt that pressure here.
Also as early as halfway through the game I was practically drowning in Supplies.
All in all it's a good first step for Doekuramori and I can't wait to see what they come up with next!
Steam User 19
The Dev is not a Guro Artist
The game is not based on a Guro Fetish
Its just a fun shooter with dark themes and a bunch of western idiots on twitter have looked too much into the bottle again
If you want to support eastern artists that already recieve too much BS for literally just doing what they love, this game would be a good place to start. It would also show the Dev that not everyone is a god damn idiot.
Steam User 13
Nice game, Rough around the edges and some glitches here and there but its fun. Focused more on Guns, Gibs and Gore rather then fan service unless gore is your fan service. Overall its pretty good, its a serious action Anime themed FPS game, which is rare to see in the western market. Hope to see more FPS games like these trend in the future.