Blood Alloy desperately wants to be a Metroidvania game crossed with a twin stick shooter, the truth is it struggles to do ether well. You’re put in the role of a cyborg ninja style character that can fly around the screen taking out enemies and looking flashy as you do it. Unfortunately this doesn’t cover the gaping holes in its control scheme and this is where the game really falls apart. When played with mouse and keyboard the game is a mess and makes some really odd choices like having two jump keys but on controller things become a little easier. Even then though the choice to make the shoot button something you have to press repeatedly instead of the traditional hold to fire that’s been tried and tested just serves to frustrate even more than is necessary. These aren’t the only issue I find with the controls ether, much of the time these controls seem to focus on style rather than substance. The character has a dodge that takes you so far across the screen chances are you’ll avoid one enemy only to land on another. Your sword attack can be done in any direction, but its hit and miss if the game will pay any attention to the direction you’re pressing. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the idea. There are even issues with level design too, sometimes you can shoot through platforms and more an inch to the left and suddenly you can’t. There’s no consistency with the game. On top of all this there’s no guidance on what you’re even doing, you wonder round shooting things until an onscreen marker shows up and you go kill what it’s pointing too and you’re on your own again until it decides to show up again. I don’t know if you have to kill X amount of these to progress or if the game is just score attack as it doesn’t tell me. You get a brief glimpse at a plot when completing training mode, but nothing to give you any idea of what the hell is going on. The game shows me an upgrades menu, but gives me no idea of how to unlock them and this story continues. . . The Steam reviews so far show a very different story than mine, it seems to be really well received. Maybe if you persist with the game thing improve, maybe it becomes clearer but I have little to no incentive to do so as the game gives me no hint of this and I’m not inclined to continue in some blind hope. This isn’t an early access game, I have no reason to suggest it might improve or get better. Maybe this game just isn’t for me, or maybe everyone else is wrong. I don’t know but I do know I don’t recommend it.

Great score attack game with a deep combat system. Really challenging too. It's the sort of title you keep coming back at to prove what you learned. All of that is made more enjoyable by an amazing soundtrack and realy cool visuals.