BUTCHER Review

After his successful move to Steam, where he had a great reception from users and very positive ratings, Butcher has made the leap to consoles. The game was originally developed by independent studio Transhuman Design and has come to consoles from Crunching Koalas, hoping to continue to get very good results.

Curiously, the plot of this video game distances us from the premises that offer us other titles and to which we are much more accustomed. Humanity is on the verge of extinction, but contrary to what we might expect from reading this, our role will not be that of rescuers ...

Duration

The biggest drawback with Butcher is its short duration. The game is very, very short. Without the need to be an extremely skilled player, the first time we play we will be able to finish 100% of game levels in less than an hour and a half. In fact, one of the achievements of the game is to finish Butcher on difficult or higher difficulty in less than 45 minutes.

The factor that strengthens butcher's replayability is precisely its difficulty and the challenge that it offers to overcome these levels in increasing difficulties that increase the challenge that this can imply or even to play to these levels again with a stopwatch on screen to get them finished In the shortest time possible.

Apart from this last fact is that it doesn't offer too many incentives for us to continue playing once the game is completed, except to repeat the same levels with a stopwatch to get it completed in the shortest possible time or focus on repeating the same levels over and over again.

Gameplay

This is a 2D shooter that is characterized by a simple and frantic gameplay. The game doesn't have a story mode as such, since at no time no one tells us what is happening in the plot beyond seeing with our own eyes that we are killing humanity.

We will begin our mission directly on a space station. Through this we will transport to each of the different levels of the game. Butcher has 5 zones or different settings that we will have to clear, although it has a special mission in which we will face the final boss. In each of these areas, except the final boss, we will find 4 different levels.

Although we will have freedom of mobility and in fact, we will have to move very fast if we want to survive the shots of the enemies, our character will always be in the center of the screen, so our vision in each direction will be the same allowing us to know always towards what point we are going or who is shooting at us.

The purpose of the game is to eliminate all enemies as we reach the end of the level, in some of these levels we will find some simple puzzles to solve from time to time and a series of collectibles. Sometimes to continue to advance we will have to survive waves of enemies in something that the game calls Extermination.

The first time that they get to finish with us, we will discover the control points don't exist, so once we enter a zone, we will have to start and finish each level independently and continuously, if we die at one of these levels, To the point of reaching the end and having defeated all enemies, we will be forced to restart the level from the beginning. It's not too annoying because each level usually lasts around three or four minutes.

The game features several different levels of difficulty, although ideally it would start playing in difficult, in fact the game part of the difficult premise is the difficulty level easier. Although we actually have a level of difficulty much more affordable that turns the game into a ride. The problem is that if we remove its difficulty, the game will lose it's most important attraction, since as we have commented throughout the analysis, the story is practically non-existent and if we remove this challenge we will not have much.

Graphics & Design

At the beginning of the game, the first thing that strikes us is Butcher's style and very retro theme. Both the game menus and the different scenarios are very pixelated and this may crash at first, but after a few minutes. This style makes immersion in the game much easier because it is the kind of game that you want to resemble. So the game graphically gets exactly what is proposed.

The game is very well optimized for consoles and loading times are practically nonexistent, so this is a game that offers as one of its best weapons instant entertainment. The Butcher controls are also very well-suited to play it smoothly with a controller.

Among the most satisfying aspects with which Butcher leaves us is his sound section. The songs that accompany us during the game facilitate frantic gameplay and accompany gunshots. If we combine all these elements together with the cries of agony of the last survivors of humanity after their encounter with us, they will form a melody of chaos and destruction in our path.

Conclusion

Butcher is a very addictive and fun game in which we will have to kill enemies through a variety of different scenarios. We will be accompanied at all times by a great soundtrack and the cries of our victims. We could almost buy this title with a game like a DOOM in 2D, but without demons and much shorter.

Although the game is very well optimized and offers instant entertainment, it's very short and this makes it very repetitive in a very short space of time, but during that time will offer much fun and entertainment.

We are faced with a game that if we are minimally skillful we can complete in less than an hour and this, makes the experience much shorter than we would like. After two hours, we will have completed all 20 levels of the game and we will have seen everything that offers us.