LinuxGameCast Reviews – The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile

Your intrepid heroes climb walls, get good, and unlock a unlock Pretty Princess. The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile faces the CHAIRQUISITION!

Game: The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile
Webzone: http://store.steampowered.com/app/268990/
Devel: Ska Studios / Flibitijibibo
Engine: FNA
Price: 9.99 / CDN 10.99

Wazzat: Embark on a blood soaked quest of vengeance as either Yuki, a machine-armed, mentally unraveling prisoner, or The Dishwasher, a relentless, reanimated samurai, against the corrupted leaders of society: the Banker, the General, and the Judge.

Mandatory Disclosure: They Sent us keys

CHAIRQUISITION:
– Nooope

– Not sure if want

– Check it out

– Shutupandtakemymonies

Colour key: Venn Jordan Pedro

Makes with the working

V-

Holds a solid 60 @ 1080.
Had to restart once in multiplayer.
Button prompts reverted to the keyboard while using the controlla.

J-

Holy shit you guys! The multiplayer works!

P-

Total-

Shiny / Sounds

V-

I just really dig the art style from these cats.
It’s fluid, dark, and gory as all hell.
Yeah, it still has that cardboard cutout vibe but it works for a brawler.
It makes noises and shite when you hit stuff so nothing to complain about since you won’t be focused on it in the first place.

J-

I really do like the art style in this game
However, what I don’t like is the monotone colour scheme that makes it super easy to lose your character
Combined with the random blood spatter effects, I can’t see what the hell is going on, and that frustrates me
Would’ve gotten 3 chairs if it weren’t for that

P-

You know how in Charlie Murder you’d keep losing track of your character in Multiplayer?
Here, you keep losing track of your character, in single player!
That said, I didn’t hate the background music on this one.
And while the animation is a lot rougher than their latter titles, the general visual aesthetics fit the game very well.
You can tell that this game came out before Charlie Murder and Salt & Sanctuary.
But more on that later.

Total-

Control

V-

Yeah, everything works and makes /w the binding but something is slightly off with running up walls.
Seriously, you cannot rely on that works 100% of the time.

J-

P-

Button mash, the game!
I’m serious! I don’t feel like I’m improving all that much in this game as I play.
Often I feel like it’s blind luck that my button mashing has just the right timing to stun lock 3 or 4 enemies at once.
That said, each thwack of the Violence Hammer feels very satisfying!
Only boss or miniboss style monsters don’t get immediately pummeled into the floor with it.

Total-

FUN

V-

On normal this game is being hard on purpose.
In multiplayer the hard is almost welcome since it causes you to break out of fk around mode and actually focus.
In single player the hard can simply fk right off because you are already focusing on why your friends never come around anymore.
Does that sound fun?
No, it sounds like a mixed bag.
Here’s the dice, like Charlie muderator this is a no apologies brawler.
Upgrades, power ups, low-yield thermonuclear nukes, enchanted weasels yeah, none of those are going to save you from getting killed to death early and often.
Hell, the game is quite proud of how efficient it is at killing you, but I will let Pedro rap about that.
So, boiled down what do you have? Streets of Rage on fk mothering 11.
Does it have a story? Dunno and don’t care in the slightest because games like this server one purpose… mash buttons and chill the fk out.
Unfortunately this one had a big ole swing and miss on the chill out part.
I don’t need hard in my chill the hell out games.
This was just another step closer to SKA making Salt & Sanctuary, which they did.

J-

This is a much less refined charlie murder
Where that game had a lot of attitude and charm, and colourful characters to compliment the gameplay, this one, just devolves into straight button mashing, and doesn’t really do much for me
While the pretty princess mode is there just to taunt you, the easy mode is genuinely a little too easy. After getting stuck in a few places on normal, I decided to give it a whirl just to see what the difference was, and you have to be a special kind of dumb to drop below 50% health on any of the fights
I like a learning curve in my games, one that lets you see how well you’ve improved. This, again, just teaches you how to button mash with greater efficacy
There is a moves list that tells you the combos for the various weapons you find, but it feels a bit spray and pray when you actually try to execute them

P-

This game mocks you if you’re not doing good enough.
Die twice in a row? You unlock the Pretty Princess difficulty level where, not only is everything piss easy, the game gets a rainbow style color palette and instead of blood, enemies bleed out those pink glowy hearts.
The “Achievement” you get when you unlock Pretty Princess also takes a nice pot shot at game reviewers who bitched the previous Dishwasher game was too hard!
And while I appreciate a game calling me a scrub and beating my ass down, case in point, I very much enjoyed Hollow Knight, Salt & Sanctuary and other such damn hard games.
But damn hard is only enjoyable to the point where you feel like with each failure you’re getting better and eventually overcome the challenge.
In Vampire Smile, like I mentioned in controls, I don’t feel like I’m getting better.
The simple fact I managed to beat the game still feels like blind luck.
I didn’t feel like I was improving and overcoming, I felt like I kept getting really lucky and stun locking as many enemies as possible in one combo.
While I still enjoy a great deal of things about this game, it is painfully obvious Ska Studios still had quite a bit to learn.
I’ve mentioned many times that, in my opinion, video games live or die on their mechanics. Aesthetics and narrative should serve to complement those mechanics and not get in the way.
But when you’re actively taking control away from me to show an overlong kill animation, or to show me a door has opened, or to tell me where to go, or to show me that the key I just picked up unlocked the door I’m standing in front of, that doesn’t feel like an organic video game experience.
It feels condescending and a little bit pretentious. “Look at this awesome art I put in. Look at it! Don’t want to look at it? Tough! You’re going to be sitting there for a full 3 seconds until you learn to enjoy it.”
So no, I didn’t enjoy The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile very much.