Thank you Fulqrum Publishing for sending us the review code!

Viscerafest is a very fast-paced first-person shooter where you take the role of a bounty huntress named Caroline hoping to make enough money to propose to her boyfriend, an awkward little alien named Athens. However, the bounty she takes brings her through a much larger conflict with tougher struggles and enemies. As the game progresses, your enemies range from aliens to cultists to Lovecraftian horrors. Though hard to follow, the story of Viscerafest is quite riveting, and I do believe that it’s worth playing.

The general pacing and gameplay loop is quite enjoyable. The movement system is centered around bunny-hopping and dashing; the former of which allows you to gain a lot of speed at a profound rate. This makes combat very fun, but places a fairly high skill floor in order to excel. Additionally, basic platforming often relies on the momentum you can get from it, being frequently risky and excruciating.

That being said, the combat itself is generally pretty compelling. The high energy and pace combined with unique areas to blast in allows for a lot of neat encounters and fun ways to open or close distance with enemies. I found myself having a lot of fun whizzing around the level, belting out bomb clusters at groups of enemies and letting splash damage do the rest. Something I did notice as a little nitpick about the combat, though, was that ammunition for most weapons was found to be rather scarce. Ammo types are scattered sparsely throughout each level, oftentimes having a lot more be provided before a larger conflict or battle. Some rooms have regenerating ammo for some of the guns, typically the pistols, but the weapons that are actually consequential are sometimes rare to use. Instead of shooting, you may also use the game’s mediocre and situational melee attack, typically only used on the fodder-est of fodder enemies.

Though the gameplay is very well-done, the environments are also something else. The first chapter is almost all in a futuristic factory style, where you primarily fight robots and alien creatures. The second combined that aesthetic with a sort of Asian dynasty style, being set in bamboo forests that also feature industrial buildings. It pits you against all of the same enemies from the previous chapter, while also introducing some members of a strange tribal cult who attack very fast and with great chaos. The third chapter, however, is such a fever dream, featuring some zombie versions of old fodder, as well as some weird eldritch creatures that distort your view and pack quite a punch. The environments are all over the place, with some areas cutting off into a void of all-seeing eyes, all different color pallets, and levels featuring worn-down and color-swapped versions of previous environments. The scenes progressively degrade, leading up to the final boss, being an actual Lovecraftian deity. It isn’t really explained all too well how a simple bounty got you here, but either way it’s interesting enough.

The roster of weapons is fairly unique and most stand apart from the others in their uses and types. As expected, the arsenal features fully automatic weapons, a pistol, shotguns, explosives, and some unique ones like a boomerang-shotgun, a mustard gas capsule launcher, a flamethrower, and an immensely powerful plasma ball that turns your foes into piles of flesh. Something I did notice about the weapon balancing, though, is that the early-game weapons are often made very obsolete in the latter chapters. The pistol shares ammo with the full-auto shredders, and also uses more of it. Combined with its lesser firepower, it is quickly replaced as soon as you find the shredders. The only time I found myself using it is when I was forced to, when all other weapons were taken away. Although it’s a cool idea, the gas capsule launcher also saw minimal action. Its damage output is so minuscule, its use is so situational, and its ammo isn’t prioritized much in levels. All of the other ones saw a lot of action and I enjoyed using them quite a lot.

Graphically, Viscerafest is alright when taken at face value. It adapts a DOOM-like style of 3D environments with 2D characters and props, and the cutscenes are drawn artwork. However, I would like to applaud a lot of this art, as it is quite well made, and the spritework and animations are masterfully created too. The music is also something that deserves attention, featuring pleasant musical complexity, great guitar playing, and unique instrumentation. All dialogue in the game is also voice-acted, featuring character interactions, NPCs, and one-liners from the protagonist. Said one-liners are a bit annoying after a bit, but can be made less frequent or disabled. Stability isn’t too much of a struggle either; I only encountered one or two spots with awkward map collisions.

From a moral standpoint, Viscerafest does not thrive. The violence in-game is, while plentiful, not very graphic. It is notable, though, that gibbed enemies create disembodied hearts that you can eat to regain health. Another thing that threw me off was one cutscene that showed the main character unconscious with a large and detailed opening in her torso, with her organs spilling out. The language used is fairly mild, but is frequent. As I mentioned earlier, some enemies are cultists, leading to some imagery and actions of that genre. A final thing to note is the presence of nudity among some enemies and NPCs.

I personally quite enjoyed Viscerafest, and found that the fast combat and movement tickle a very pleasant nerve in my brain. Following the story was a task, yet its confounding twists made it a pleasant experience. Although very much not intended for children, I would recommend this game to anyone enjoying the recent resurgence of movement shooters.