Video Game Review - Metal Tales: Overkill

Rob reviews Metal Tales: Overkill on Xbox Series X...

Rogue-lite's often build themselves around a central theme. This not only provides the basis on which the story is built upon. It also affects how everything looks and ultimately how the game plays. With Hades it was Greek mythology, Curse of The Dead Gods is all about lost temples, and The Persistence is pure sci-fi horror. When it comes to Metal Tales: Overkill it's all about heavy metal, and as someone who grew up with the likes of Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax - it was already a hit in my eyes. 

The plot of Metal Tales: Overkill focuses on the God Kuk who has plans to take over the world. This plan involves destroying a few heavy metal bands and turning their followers into mindless zombies. Standing in Kuk's way is our hero - an electric guitar-wielding, heavy metal fanatic - whose musical prowess is the one thing that can put a stop to Kuk's plan. 

On the surface, the game's plot is about as crazy as you can get. However, it does fit the theming very well. This craziness also filters down to the general gameplay with every maze-like level being a hellish gig filled with monsters and bosses. Not only this but these locations are also filled with plenty of heavy metal-based comedy and a wealth of sly references and easter eggs. Away from this and Metal Tales: Overkill is a fairly simple game.

The gameplay consists of the staple rogue-lite formula of the shoot, loot, die, repeat. To keep the format fresh, Metal Tales: Overkill utilises procedurally generated maps design which means you'll never encounter the same layout twice. Away from this and you'll also be given three optional tasks to complete before you finish the gig. These side missions aren't too taxing and upon completion will reward you with the points needed to buy permanent character upgrades. 

Each dungeon also features a wealth of loot to collect, and an abundance of coins to spend in the store for yet more loot. Each piece you collect affects our guitar hero in a multitude of ways. Whether it is enhancing his speed, adding more health, or even boosting his fire rate there's an upgrade for it. There's a certain degree of luck when it comes to what power-ups will appear during your run. On occasion, you'll get a cluster of strong power-ups in a row, and on others, you'll get hardly any. Naturally, this is the norm when it comes to making a procedurally generated title. However, this also makes the game more interesting. 

Enemies also fall into the tried and tested roguelite classes, and as such, you'll be battling a mixture of ranged and close combat mobs. Bosses mix things up little, however, they do resort to using very cheap tactics - which is to be expected right!? The same can also be said for the game's many challenge rooms. As the title suggests, these rooms are intended to be a challenge. Much like the boss battles, you'll encounter a real test of skill which turns the game into Elden Ring. While entirely optional, overcoming these challenges does earn you a pretty hefty skill upgrade, and a fee of coins to permanently upgrade our hero. So the choice is yours. 

Controls are an odd affair. Rather than utalise, a twin-stick pattern, instead of shooting is performed by using the face buttons. While this control method is serviceable, it does somewhat dampen the experience and makes combat less fluid. 

When it comes to presentation, Metal Tales: Overkill utilises its theme very well. The atmosphere throughout is very dark and dreary, with a lot of gothic overtones. In contrast to this, the enemies shoot neon projectiles at you, and even then enemies themselves are fairly bright and colourful. As expected the soundtrack is brash and in your face with plenty of guitar riffs and electric solos. Seriously if you're a heavy metal music fan then Metal Tales: Overkill caters to everything you'd expect a heavy metal game to sound like! 

In summary, Metal Tales: Overkill is a good addition to the genre. It's a fun rogue-lite that utilises its rng well to create a wealth of variation in its world. Whether you're playing in co-op or solo, there are a lot of games to experience. Its presentation is simple - yet effective and the title gives off a distinct 80s, and 90s feel - albeit in high definition. If you're a fan of the movie Wayne's World, or any of the bands I mentioned above then Metal Tales: Overkill will certainly entertain you for a few hours. However, you don't have to be a heavy metal mystro to enjoy what Zerouno Games have created.

Rating 7.5/10 

Metal Tales: Overkill is out now and can be purchased via the Microsoft Store by clicking here.

A free code was kindly provided for this review. 

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