Otherwar Review (PS5) – Angelic Attrition
As the results screen pops up after my shift of keeping demons in hell, I realised that it really felt like work. The adage is that if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life, but it’s not really a tangible thought process. There are moments of stress, anxiety in some cases and even physical exhaustion when working – however, you can come away from those moments and be proud you’ve done it. Otherwar is work, it’s just not any of the positives associated with it.
Otherwar is instead those rare downtimes where you’re not really doing enough to be engaged. It’s a time sink that feels like a sunk cost fallacy, despite its very generous and approachable £4.99 price point. And because of that, it’s the worst thing a game can be: boring. That results screen I mentioned at the top was my moment to give up exploring what the game had to offer.
It’s a mish-mash of tower defence and bullet hell that doesn’t succeed in being either, but I will say it’s not completely irredeemable. Otherwar is completely flawed, but not in a way that renders it totally unplayable. I spent about 6-7 hours before calling it quits, and that was simply because I couldn’t engage with what it was offering, though it may be enough for someone else.
Helldiving
Otherwar briskly establishes that you’re an angel sent to the gates of Hell to stop demons from getting through. That is it, maybe there’s a closing set of screens that tell you the result of all your hard work, but I didn’t get there. It’s an easy-to-grasp premise with an easy-to-grasp set of rules. You, as the angel, can fire holy bullets from your halo. If your bullets aren’t doing the job well enough, you can set up towers to assist you in eradicating the evil.
Every mission is laid out in waves, with a direction signifying where the demons will be coming from. This means you can strategically place your towers before each round starts and try to get the upper hand. Every demon follows the allotted path on the level, with the gate at the top of the screen being the thing you must protect. It has a health bar, consisting of hearts, as do you. Once the gate’s health depletes, you’ve failed the mission.
The gate can lose health by demons reaching it before you take them out, or if you lose your health bar. If you do lose all your health, you become stunned for a moment and lose one of the several hearts the gate has too. There are 10 waves to clear on the level, with enemies increasing in numbers every time. Enemies drop coins for you to buy more towers, as well as upgrade them, and thus starts that loop of managing your resources.
Man The Gates
At least, that’s how it should play out. Instead, I would have a couple of upgraded towers set up and would stand idle where I knew the enemies would come from and shoot with the right analogue stick in that direction. And I would do that for 15 minutes straight at a time. Of course, there’ll be some manoeuvring of my character to dodge out of enemy fire, but with a few recurring attack patterns, alongside some overwhelming power and underwhelming enemy waves, you’ll quickly be able to do it with your eyes closed.
The selection of towers you unlock as you progress are fairly uninspired, too. You have a single shot, double shot, triple shot, one that freezes enemies, one that slows them down, a treasury to earn coins as the time ticks on, a couple that do an AOE attack, and they all can’t help but tread on each other’s toes. Not to mention that where you can place them is limited to where the game allows you, and there are definitely some spots that could have done with a space for a tower, but there just isn’t.
The list feels arbitrary, especially when the amount of coins you earn in-game to build and upgrade your towers doesn’t equate to the amount of enemies you face. I found that I didn’t need the towers, for the most part, once I spent XP on my character to do more damage and shoot faster. That is, until the second-to-last mission, where there were just too many enemies all at once, all of which were damage sponges.
Tower Offensive
In short, Otherwar is incredibly unbalanced in both its bullet hell action, which just feels like a hell of attrition, coupled with a tower defence economy that doesn’t expand with your character, nor facilitate the use of a map sprawling with a demon-defeating fleet. Now there is an ‘endless mode’ which I’m sure is locked behind the completion of its campaign, maybe that fixes some of the balancing. However, I’m not holding my breath.
The pixel art style is fine enough, the music is atmospheric but not necessarily befitting of its visuals, and the levels are just way too long to begin with. My main takeaway from Otherwar is that I managed to get through a few podcasts in the meantime, whilst sinking my time into this. For some, that’s more than enough – something to zone out to, put your brain in a jar, watch the numbers slowly go up and have something else on.
For me, though, I was hoping for a bit more strategy, a hell of a lot better blending of genres and something a little less offensive to my time. Overall, Otherwar isn’t the war I want to be fighting, but there may be someone else out there who might.
Otherwar is out now for PlayStation 5 (review platform), Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam.
Developers: kantal collective
Publisher: Untold Tales, Hyperstrange
Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.
If you enjoyed this article or any more of our content, please consider our Patreon.
Make sure to follow Finger Guns on our social channels. Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, Spotify or Apple Podcasts – to keep up to date on our news, reviews and features.
