Viktor

This game makes to many errors in its design, I recommend not even starting it.
The most egregious is that it has an upgrade system but doesn't allow you to farm coins. You only get coins you find if you finish a stage and replaying the stage holds less coins.
Also, the game should have focused on shooting. Once you add platforming elements, it becomes highly frustrating to say the least. Pits, falling platforms and enemies that knock you back are just a sample of bad ideas on display.
I've only managed to finish the first level. Even if you manage to make it through the levels, you then have to defeat difficult bosses with a measly 2 lives (if you didn't die in travel).
I've never been a fan of the Mega Man level style that requires either a walkthrough or multiple playthrus to make good use of.

PROS: I like the graphics and the story is VERY reminiscent of Soul Reaver. I like the dash mechanic and how it's implemented in the platforming. The graphics and sound are nice, except for the opening cut-scene of sketches and very quick subtitles with no voice-over.

The game is not fun and seems more effort to play than feels satisfying to complete.

I don't want to pick on this game, because it isn't bad, but it is very flawed. The short version: if you're looking for side-scrolling action and this dark-fantasy-with-guns aesthetic appeals to you, try the much better prequel, Loyalty and Blood: Viktor Origins, instead. Likewise, if you do try this game, but don't care for it, Origins is still worth a look.

The core ideas here aren't bad (see again the prequel for a more refined version), but they suffer in implementation. Levels are overly large, and each section feels pretty much the same as the last, with a few exceptions. Bosses barely telegraph their attacks, making them sometimes difficult to see and avoid. Movement is a bit slippery, and you can't jump and aim at the same time, since jumping is bound (unchangeably, I think) to the A button. There are a variety of unlockable weapons to choose from, but they are pitifully weak and incredibly limited in ammunition; I just upgraded my pistols to the maximum and ignored everything else.

Inexplicably, boss fights suffer from extreme load times that are not present anywhere else in the game. Most of these took 20-30 seconds on an SSD, which is already long, but at least one took over three minutes.

Beat on normal in about 4 hours. For less than $10, this is a good game. Easy to pick up but still fast paced and challenging without being so hard you want to throw something.

Does have a couple minor issues.

My biggest problem was the load time on a couple of the bosses was really bad. I thought the game was going to crash. To the point were I had to wait about 5 mins for the final 2 bosses to load. Really not a big deal if you don't get stuck fighting them over and over. I was able to beat the games final boss on the first try, but if i had to do the fight multiple times it would most definitely be unpleasant.

Otherwise I just didn't like the space bar jump mechanic, so I changed jump to the W key and the game was great! Def worth the purchase.

Viktor has some nice ideas and mechanics, but i have some problems with it: double jump and dash are required all the time, becoming a burden; the enemies and bosses are bullet sponges and require systematic approaches; the enemies are small, strong and generic projectiles, bugs and spiders; the soundtrack is tiresome; screen shake is excessive and cannot be disabled. I beat about 50% of the game, tried some upgrades but could not bother to continue.

This is a really solid idea for a game suffering from design flaws that sadly break it for me.
You get 3 lives before you have to restart a level, which is kind of frustrating considering the game throws stuff at you constantly, but I might just be bad.
There is NO incentive to kill 99% of mobs. Next to no item spawns, next to no gold spawns. Might as well just fly past them.
Knockback on hit on a game that can get as slippery as Viktor feels counterintuitive to how fast the game wants you to go.

I wish I could recommend it, but it just falls a bit short of every expectation

This is a fun little game to kill some time with. So long as you aren't dying constantly, the game lasts around 2 hours, so maybe get it on sale if you're cheap like me. Action was good for what it is and I thought the designs of the bosses were interesting. Also the dash is very cool, love how it looks and functions. Easily the best part of the game for me because I'm a sucker for cool movement options.

Within the first 35 minutes of playing, I have experienced massive lag spikes, a glitch where I teleported inside a wall, walked through some area I wasn't supposed to, and got stuck, and the game crashing my computer.

Everything about the game is just average. Not a huge amount of effort has been put into the graphics. It's one of those games where it indicates the frame rate is good but actually looks poor like it's taking hits all the time. The enemies are uninspiring and the whole game feels a bit bland. The game also froze when I went to exit it, which was kinda the deal-breaker for me.

whatever the old reviews say is still what most of the issues are, i've clipped into the walls a few times, I've beat the final boss at this point and i have yet to go for a hard run, its pretty challenging on normal as it is which is good,

yea its old school style stuff, and the selling point is your dash or blink, it hella feels good, for the price, maybe wait for a sale, but then again its not that pricey as it is so yea, if you can tolerate a some bugs and some controller issues, i played this on the pc, and it was meant for the mouse i'm sure,

the is a decent amount of replayability in this one, if you like what you see, then go get it, but i have played the sequel, or rather prequel, loyalty and blood: viktor origins, that one is a defined version of this, but they feel different, so if you want a similar experience but with more polish and over all more content, go for the 2nd one,

conclusion: if you like what you see, and have the patience to endure some issues, yea go for it

Pros:
+ Cool art style
+ Nice BGM (Symphonic Metal)
+ Boss fight is perfect (not too hard or too easy)
+ Various weapons
+ Upgradeable weapons

Cons:
- FPS down & locked to 9 on fullscreen
- Mouse control bugged on fullscreen
- Control setting always back to default whenever you want to back to main menu/quit game
- Repetitive battle style
- You have to jump to dash upward (meh)
- You can only do dash upward per jump

I wish i can choose neutral since the game was fun but the bugs were really annoying.
I don't know if the dev still care about this game or not

I'm torn on this one. I like the artstyle. The gameplay has a nice contra x mega man feel to it and while I didn't care for the soundtrack and the story (maybe the story will blow my mind after I finish the game) that would be enough to recommend it if it wasn't for the bugs. It wont even start up 5 outta 6 times. You get stuck in walls/ported into nothingness all the time. The worst part is it freezes on a regular basis and crashes my whole damn pc. My specs are way above recommended framerate drops/stutters still happen all the time also my rig gets quite loud and that just shouldn't happen. This game is quite nice if it works for you. A solid 6/10 or maybe even a 7 but the technical issues render it almost unplayable for me.

overall:

good things i suppose

• it's well done
  
• there are different upgradable weapons
  
• the dashing/phasing ability is nice
  
• the music and ost are okay
  

bothersome things

• it requires a lot of grinding for gold to upgrade weapons so you have to play levels over and over until they're not fun anymore
  
• dashing in the direction of the cursor and not the direction he's facing is frustrating
  
[*]you don't get to fight the boss again once you've finished a level so the first time you beat him is also the last

Only recommending it as there is no middle option..

Pros :

+ Boss Fights
+ Mini-Boss Fights
+ Collectibles
+ Upgrades
+ Obstacles
+ Dodging

Cons :

- After 3 Deaths, you have to Replay the whole level ( The Most Annoying one )
- Can't access a previous section without restarting the whole level
- NO incentive for killing minions ( you might as well bypass all ov em )
- You too easily and very quickly, get bored ov it

Why Not Recommended?

A suprisingly large number of easy to preform game breaking bugs that you'd expect in an alpha and not a full release which I will go into more detail in the gameplay section of this review.

What is Viktor?

Viktor is a 2D Twin Stick Shooter Platformer with minor Metroidvania elements in which you'll be going through levels finding new weapons, upgrades, and killing lots of enemies as you search for everyone who betrayed the legion and the one who turned them so you can kill them.

Story (has no effect on my opinion of any game)

Story isn't anything spectacular it's a run of the mill you were betrayed by your allies and now you're hunting them down to kill them, save the world, and your friend.

Graphics (has no effect on my opinion of any game)

Graphically it's a vey nice looking game. Enemy variety texture wise is lacking as most enemies appear in all the levels without a slight retexturing to make them fit more with the level but otherwise the game looks excellent and the enemy thing is nitpicking.

Gameplay (the only thing that affects my opinions of games)

This game is more or less a clone of Bleed gameplay wise but it does enough to differ itself from Bleed. When it comes to being a twin stick shooter it's excellent the dash to dodge mechanic is well executed and the shooting is enjoyable. The dodge/dash mechanic will allow you to phase through thin walls and dodge all projectiles and attacks quite easily. The Metroidvania elements leave a lot to be desired as the aren't that well hidden and none of the items you find are required to beat levels or find other items there's also is very little reason to go back to previous levels to find stuff due to the lack of things to find so it's hard to consider this a Metroidvania. Platforming is meh there are a few areas where it does try to change it up but otherwise it isn't going to challenge you so there's no real benefits to using a controller. Now game breaking bugs are a huge issues as they're very easy to accidentally pull off and some will happen randomly and all require a level restart. First I ran into is when dashing into a wall at the wrong angle or if you're not close enough to phase through the other side you'll occasionally you'll be clip out of the map with no way back so you'll be forced to restart the level. One miniboss will (the one who bounces around) will sometimes during the fight vanish rendering the fight unwinable so you'll have to restart the level. On occasion a boss or yourself will get stuck unable to move and unable to take damage forcing you (you guessed it) to restart the level.

In conclusion Viktor is an excellent game and idea but is held back by a myriad of game breaking bugs that you'd expect in a pre alpha that should have been fixed immediately after discovery.

I recommend that you buy heavily discounted or that you get Bleed instead.

Initially I've gave a positive review on this game, I felt very eager to grind through the levels and was curious to see the game has to offer. But as I progressed, I felt tiresome to continue playing it.

As I said on my previous review, the graphics are awesome, the soundtrack is very nice as well, the concept between the game is not bad at all aside from the cliché plot. You have a nice variety of weapons and few power ups which help you through the game. Also, the controls are fluid and I haven't had any trouble playing the game with my 360 controller.

But as I was progressing on the game, I've realized that Viktor felt like I was playing the same level over and over again. There's indeed a big difference between the levels, each level is an all different kind of world, but what makes them feel like the same? The design isn't much creative, the levels are just run/jump platforms/avoid traps/use your dash to pass walls/and such, in a very boring and linear way. About 60% of this levels you just run on a straight line and jump several cliffs to advance, and the fact that the enemies are the same in the entire game made the level run boring.

The levels are not much of a challenge, as the enemies don't change much. The bosses and minibosses are the real challenge of the game, but some boss fights are just dull. You keep moving and jumping to avoid the attacks and keep shooting until the boss dies, but not in a funny way like the platformer classics as contra, metal slug, megaman, etc. On this games the bosses are challenging and fun, you walk all around the screen avoiding been hit, while on Viktor, you can move in a 2,3 inch radius on screen to avoid the boss' attacks and you're ok.

Overall, I think this is a bland game. I wanted to like it because it looks like a neat game indeed. Maybe with more polishing on the level design and the traps surrounding the enemies, more different enemies to fight and a best utilization of the bosses environment (for example on the genie boss screen, there's not much room to move and the boss takes a big part of the screen, also he don't move a single inch) the game would be funnier.

Unfortunately I woundn't recommend this game even to a platformer fan.

A really great mix between MetroidVania/Twin stick shooters, short but really sweet experience.

+ Great Art style
+ Nice soundtrack
+ Solid and fun platforming
+ perfect difficulty, not cheap or easy
+ nice boss fights
+ Great and satisfying weapons & upgrades

overall highly recommended, the game is kinda short (8 stages) but all of them were fun.

Do not be fooled by those neat graphics. The design of the very few levels in this game is just dull, you move right on a plain surface all the damn time. Most enemies are annoying rather than fun to fight. Most bosses have uninspiring attack patterns and enormous health stacks making the bossfights as tedious as it gets. Honestly, I tried to give the game a few second chances and yet simply couldn't have any fun with it despite enjoying some similar platformers.

Good
: Appropriate difficulty
: General game system(dash, upgrade, finding new weapones, etc...)
: The overriding factor is fun


Bad
: Some major bugs(In this situation u should restart that stage. Such as missing boss, falling beyond wall)
: Everytime u turn on this game ur control settings are reset



Thx for reading my poor english comment

Viktor is a 2D action platformer with 360 degree firing. Shorebound Studios doesn't have the most amazing resume but this looks to be their first IP and it's feels like it was enthusiastically made. I played exclusively with a wireless 360 controller. I took a chance with this game and was pleasantly surprised. It's a pretty solid experience and it does some things very well. Some things... not so well. It's plays like a Megaman game and looks like a Castlevania game.

Here's the nitty gritty:
The Good
- The teleport dash is fantastic. It really feels good. The dash refreshes quickly and about 90% of the time it goes where I expect it. It was obviously the core mechanic around which the game was made (if not initially, then eventually). Cutting corners by passing through them and the snap through platforms feels really awesome.
- The pistols feel good. Firing is definitely assisted but not overwhelmingly so. The aiming is sticky. If you let go of the right stick you will continue to fire in that direction. Initially it felt strange, mostly because I expected the character to face the direction of movement when not actively shooting. When I got over that, it lended itself interestingly. There are segments where enemies approach from the same direction and I was able to take them down while focusing on platforming.
- Animation quality is excellent. Everything feels very smooth.
- Each level feels unique and each boss feels unique. All of them have good pacing and frenetic action. Unique strategies are required to take each one down. The strategies are not obscenely difficult to identify and none of them feel cheap.
- Alternate paths and secret areas are littered throughout and encourage exploration.
- Enemies and bosses look cool.

The Bad
- Normal movement feels off. The run speed feels too slow. Maybe I'm used to floaty jumping but you descend like a rock and it's especially noticeable since the teleport doesn't feel that way. Non-teleporting just doesn't feel like it's tuned quite right.
- The art design no the levels feels nice and thematic but the areas themselves feel empty. I'm not looking for bullet hell levels of density but the spaces feel underpopulated. Maybe it just needs more props/set dressing.
- Lots of bouncy balls. The majority of the mid-bosses are bouncing balls of various types. Don't get me wrong, I like bouncing balls as much as the next guy but I think there could have been more variety.
- The music is only ok. It didn't have me stopping to listen but it also didn't feel out of place. It was sufficient.
- There are other weapons than the pistols but for the life of me, I don't see why. I have acquired the shotgun, rocket launcher, and grenade launcher. After using each for a few minutes, I was using the pistols again. I will be blunt here. The weapons are unimaginative and underwhelming. They add very little value. Shorebound took some inspiration from the Megaman X series, to be sure, but failed to bring with it the interesting weapons that are so iconic of the Megaman games. Each boss has a projectile attack that could be adapted to use by Viktor.
- Boss difficulty is kind of all over the place from very easy to lengthy and difficult.
-Viktor is the least impressive of the character designs.

I really really wish I could reconmend this game. Viktor has a lot of good ideas and elements mixing bits of contra, megaman, and DMC, but is hampered by poor execution. When the game is at it's best it's pretty damn good, but it is plagued by too many bugs, glitches and control problems in it's current form. Clipping into walls and getting stuck is the biggest bug that will cost you many a life due to no fault of your own.

Outside of bugs it has some flaws including a damage recoil far too great for it's slippery controls to justify and needless use of a lives system (made especially frustrating due to the wall glitches eating up extra lives like candy) and a low item spawn rate that feels horribly imbalanced.

This game could be great with some more polishing but until it at very least fixes the serious wall bugs I cannot reconmend it in it's current form.