Kiborg Review (PC): Slaughterhouse, Prison-Themed

I previously got my hands on the Kiborg beta and had a blast taking down foes with unapologetic rage and brutality. Without hesitation, I accepted the task of reviewing the full release of the title and am not disappointed by the outcome. What the developers have made is a game that reminds me of older titles like Slaughterhouse with a hint of Soulslike and roguelike mechanics thrown in.

Stuck in a prison with you

The main essence of Kiborg is that you are stuck in a prison, trying to escape a brutal game show from hell, complete with an annoying host who mocks you around every corner. If you manage to climb your way through the tower that is your prison, you can escape via a helicopter. Needless to say, the story is not where this game shines, and nobody should jump into Kiborg expecting a masterpiece like a triple-A title or a heavily-invested indie game.

The strongest part of Kiborg is the combat. It is here that the game shines and where you get the most fun. From the start, you are able to climb the ranks of the tower, fighting unique enemies that require different tactics to take down. For instance, some require you to break through shields, while others will evade your attacks, requiring you to parry them if you want a solid hit. The combat kept me on my toes, and I consistently needed to think of new strategies to employ so I didn’t wind up back at the start of the twisted game show.

One of my main critiques of the beta was that the combat locations felt very limited, and I saw the same arenas over and over again. After a while, this made the game feel stale. Thankfully, this has been addressed, and there’s a much wider range of arena locations, giving the game more variability.

Another major complaint that I had about the beta was the announcer’s voice. Hearing the Eric Cartman-esque announcer made me want to play with the volume on mute, so I didn’t need to deal with him. Now, his voicelines appear to have been expanded, and his annoying tone is broken up by an AI woman giving you tips about the game. Again, a change for the better that made the game much more enjoyable.

Upgrades, baby, upgrades

Since the beta, Kiborg has received a bit of an overhaul of its combat system. The cybernetics, while fun, felt limited at that time. Now, these have been expanded; there are more enhancements to get, and there are far more weapons, upgrades, and perks to obtain. The combat system is fairly deep and allows for various playstyles. For instance, in one run I relied entirely on status effects such as burn, shock, and bleed, while in another run I focused on building an army of companions.

Each run feels unique but also similar. Most of the time, I battled the same enemies but in different positions and new locations based on the level of difficulty I was playing on. Each run managed to feel unique thanks to the changes, but not enough that the game didn’t have a fair degree of repetitiveness after a few hours. Nevertheless, the constant unlocking of new gear, progression on the skill tree, and drive to unlock cosmetics kept me going.

The biggest negatives I encountered during my time with Kiborg remind me of the beta. For starters, there is a lack of boss diversity. You have a handful of world bosses that appear in random rooms throughout your playthrough, but the main bosses remain the same. Thanks to this, it became relatively easy to rush through the tower and defeat the bosses because I knew their every move after my first few playthroughs. I also had my fair share of annoyance with the game’s parry mechanic, which never felt quite right and more like it needed a rework. I would either always get the parry or have runs where the parry system seemed not to function.

Along with this, I think the devs should focus on fixing the wide number of bugs that I encountered. To name a few, I randomly died for no reason after it told me I completed a room, an enemy body got stuck to my character model, and I dragged it around until I died, and I also noticed that I would randomly get slowed down on occasion for no reason. It appeared as though the slowing effect of the cold status remained, and I was stuck moving slowly for a much longer time than I should have been.

The Verdict

Kiborg is an unapologetically fun and somewhat addictive beat-em-up title that I heavily enjoyed. The developers did a great job enhancing the combat, adding more upgrade paths, weapons, and enemies, and did a wonderful job adding more variety to the arenas. The main hindrances that Kiborg faces are the numerous bugs that I encountered and the lack of boss variety. Of course, a more creative story would be nice than one that feels like it was taken from the Death Race franchise, but that isn’t why you pick up a beat-em-up title. Overall, the team made major changes that enhanced Kiborg and made it much better than it previously was.

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