My Wallet's Heart is the Cards: 99 Levels to Hell

Actually, that is a bit dishonest, since this year Steam handed me like $25 for gems and some TF2 item I'm not even sure as to the reason for existing. But cards make up an even greater pool of my steam wallet, and this game has ... Or had, who knows when anyone will read this ... relatively valuable cards. It actually pooped out a foil, which is nice! I've gotten two foils this month, which is half the foils I've ever gotten after grinding out hundreds of cards.

This is a short one, because there isn't really a ton to 99 Levels to Hell. The game is an odd mix, in that it is both a twin stick shooter and a platformer, with some sort of procedurally generated roguelike nonsense going on as well. I'm not entirely sure on that, it feels like the levels are vaguely different, but who knows. In terms of gameplay, the game really is what it very much sounds like. I don't know that I like the twin stick shooting when applied to a boxy platforming world, it is sort of reminds me how frustrating it could get when taking aim in Terraria. Because platforming is often a very boxy, precise concept and twin stick shooting is messy spray and pray, the game has some weird dissonance going on. You are expected to aim down a lot, which doesn't work all that well. It is actually sort of funny - in the early levels, the scariest thing is a rat in a hole, because while you can just walk on by actually hitting the rat in the hole is brutally difficult.

Visually, the game resembles on at least a spiritual level Hero Siege, which I reviewed a couple months ago and quite liked. There's a lot of shared, happy to be immature, blood everywhere, don't worry about the tone style to this game that helps it get away from the fact the art assets are pretty basic stuff. I would say it is a step down from Hero Siege, but still in the same vein. It doesn't look like pixel artwork so much as just MS paint artwork, which isn't quite as satisfying though that might be nostalgia booting me around.

Enemy design is nothing special. Bats, floating skulls, robots, the like - The bosses are sort of novel looking, but the art frankly isn't the product of much talent, and when they get as big as the bosses do, welp there's your lot. The bosses are pretty cool in actual execution, though. Except the bat boss bugged out and jammed itself into a wall when I fought it...

The game also has traps, which it shares with Hero Siege, but unlike Hero Siege it doesn't seem very consistent. Some of the levels, the traps will kill monsters, other levels they don't and its just kinda wonky. The traps are visually distinct, but the game likes to 'ah-ha!' moment you with them, which is not nearly as amusing as you'd think.

The only real bad side to the visuals, if you don't mind looking at them, is the game's lighting issues are a little weird. The game is supposed to be dark, since you're digging your way to Hell, but it ends up feeling a bit too dark and some stuff is very hard to make out. Especially egregious are power-ups, assuming you can see them, it is hard to figure out if you actually want a power-up since you only have a weapon slot, an upgrade slot and an on-use slot.

As an odd treat, 99 Levels has surprisingly solid audio direction. I don't know if its the product of a kit no one else on the planet thinks to use or the guy behind it just knowing how to make properly matching audio, but it has a good solid snappy style to it. There is some amount of music, which goes loud angry guitar when things get intense, but mostly it relies on ambient noise to make it creepy. It works, and well, which really kinda contradicting the visuals.

Anyway, is 99 Levels to Hell any good? It comes off as fine, but it feels like a low budget title through and through, and the gameplay actually does manage to get pretty irritating in parts. The platforming isn't snappy or precise, and the whole twin stick aiming thing is actually rather annoying when paired with the boxy levels. The levels honestly feel a bit too small and a bit too dull for the shooting and platforming, it feels like they would have done well to be larger and had a bit more panache. Maybe some minibosses, or some less passive floaty goofballs enemies?

Basically I'd say this one is category pass, but if you see it in a bundle (which is where I got it), it's not a bad one to install for an hour or so of goofing around. I had fun with it, but much like Hero Siege, you get to a point where re-starting just feels like too much effort.