Hellcome Early Access Review: Mindless Shooting Fun

If you were like me and loved playing Flash games on your family computer, then you’d remember a title called “Boxhead.” It was an incredible experience where endless hordes of zombies surrounded you, and you had to lay them all down with your trusty weapon. With the Early Access version, Hellcome tries to recapture that charm and bring it back into the spotlight with better fluidity, vibe, and adrenaline in 2024.

Story And Setting

Right from the start, Hellcome makes it abundantly clear that it focuses on providing a fun gameplay loop, so as you’d expect, there’s no campaign or narrative of the world for you to follow. There are no cutscenes either in the intro or mid-gameplay, no items or unlockables, and no mention of any ongoing plot. The same minimalism holds for the setting, which is just one open area with a solid Rock ‘n’ Roll track in the background.

Fortunately, on the other hand, each and every character comes with a colorful description in the Character Select Menu that tells you about their hobbies, personality, backstory, and even relationships with other characters.

Right from the start, Hellcome makes it abundantly clear that it focuses on providing a fun gameplay loop, so as you’d expect, there’s no campaign or narrative of the world for you to follow.

I would’ve preferred, though, if these characters also had some sassy one-liners during gameplay like you’d see in Left 4 Dead 2. As of now, the only voice lines are the “oof” sound effects when your character gets hit, which still got some occasional chuckles out of me. 

Gameplay

Hellcome successfully establishes its retro-style top-down shooter gameplay with finesse by incorporating a style that encourages mobility, cooperation, and strategic planning. You start by picking a character (i.e., a class) and are then thrown into a square arena with zombies popping out from different corners and running after you.

Your job is to survive through enemy waves the longest while leveling up and getting stronger. Enemies, when killed, drop XP in the form of glowing orbs, which you can collect to raise your levels. After reaching a new level, you can choose 1 upgrade from a list of 3 on the spot. These upgrades can be defensive or offensive buffs, like HP regeneration, better Attack Power, faster movement, and more.

Hellcome successfully establishes its retro-style top-down shooter gameplay with finesse by incorporating a style that encourages mobility, cooperation, and strategic planning.

There’s a Hell meter on the top-left part of your screen indicating the current Enemy Wave. As you continue progressing, you’ll face stronger Enemy Waves that showcase tougher enemies, faster mobs, and general difficulty spikes. Therefore, you must be vigilant and use your early-game upgrades to cover your character’s weaknesses first and foremost.

Playing With Friends And Planning Against Foes

What I really admire about Hellcome is each character’s sheer variety and uniqueness. The 8 characters come with unique weapons, strengths, and weaknesses, and they all encourage a unique playstyle. When playing in a party, you can assign different roles to each member and play accordingly, and I really enjoyed that dynamic aspect.

However, when you do play co-op, there is a weird visual bug on the menu screen where your stats start appearing in the top-right corner. You can see this bug in the image I provided above, and it does get distracting sometimes.

As a co-op game, you can have up to 4 members in your party for each session, and personally, aside from the aforementioned bug, that’s how I would recommend playing this game. It’s extremely fun testing various combinations with other characters while screaming into the mic when one of your party members is on the verge of dying.

The Simplistic Nature May Feel Occasionally Underwhelming

However, with all the cheer of playing top-down shooters, Hellcome’s lackluster replayability factor may be a bummer for most players. Playing with friends can give you several hours of enjoyment since you’re testing different combos and playstyles, but the game gets stale extremely quickly from that point onwards. With a gameplay loop this simple, you can’t expect it to stay rejuvenating for too long.

However, with all the cheer of playing top-down shooters, Hellcome’s lackluster replayability factor may be a bummer for most players.

While on the topic of replayability, I wanted to touch up on the in-game unlockables and achievements, which are currently none. For now, there’s no currency or any unlockable you get from completing a session; once all your party members die, the game abruptly ends and only showcases your stats.

Of course, since this was an Early Access version, I’d expect Game Dev Garage to add some currency for that longevity factor. Otherwise, the journey feels insignificant without a proper reward waiting at the end which makes your time and kills worthwhile.

There’s also the level design, which feels like a slightly missed opportunity. There are four available maps, each with minor differences, like juking spots to evade enemies. I would’ve liked to see some elevation in the layout or more interaction with the map, like traps or special zones, to add some complexity and freshness.

Visuals And Performance

Hellcome aims for a classical approach by keeping minimalistic visual fidelity, yet it still oozes personality and quirkiness. The characters, world, and even the enemies are highlighted with vibrant colors that make each element distinguishable from the other. I love the style here; the casual, cartoony art makes for a vibe that’s delightful and doesn’t look dull at all.

The graphical settings don’t have anything fancy going on in them; you get three presets to choose from: Low, Medium, and High. Each setting has a dramatic effect on lighting and shadows, but thankfully, Hellcome’s modest system requirements mean you can easily run the title on almost any hardware at maximum settings.

Hellcome aims for a classical approach by keeping minimalistic visual fidelity, yet it still oozes personality and character.

Performance-wise, I didn’t come across any game-breaking glitches or bugs. There were some occasional framerate dips when I slaughtered too many zombies on-screen, but apart from that, it was a smooth experience overall. There’s also the stat glitch which I touched upon earlier when talking about the game’s co-op mode, but I’m sure that’ll get ironed out upon full release.

Overall, even in Early Access, I’m happy to report that Hellcome’s immersive visuals and stable performance only helped to further elevate my experience. Even with a medium-spec GTX 1660Ti laptop, I had a pleasant time taking in the colorful arenas… at least until I started running again after seeing 50 zombies behind me. 

Verdict

Hellcome is everything you’d come to expect from a top-down shooter – simple, gameplay-driven, and tons of fun. Seeing this timeless form of gameplay brought back with a fresh coat of paint is really satisfying and reminds me of the early days. As an indie title, Game Dev Garage has shown its passion for the project so far by making a microtransaction-free game that focuses on player experience.

Unfortunately, the modest aspect seems to be Hellcome’s biggest drawback since there’s not much depth to either the gameplay or the visuals. My friends and I agreed that we’d probably run out of things to do in the game by the end of the week, and even as an indie game, that lifespan is just too short.

I’m hoping for long-term support to see more additions to the characters, maps, sound, and score so that I can keep coming back to it to play around with new content. As of now, though, that content feels somewhat limited, which is why the game’s fun factor burns out extraordinarily quickly.

That wraps up my review for Hellcome. Do check out more of our reviews about other games.

• The Thaumaturge Review
• Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection Review
• Alone in the Dark Review
• Pacific Drive Review