Roguelikes are all the rage, and KIBORG tries out a branching path run-based approach in the third-person action genre. It’s never great, occasionally terrible, but it has enough good looks and charm that I think it will hook a few people. You are a mustachioed man, stuck in a prison. You will earn cybernetic implants to beat the same handful of enemies thousands of times as you attempt to finish runs and unlock a hilariously voiced story.
The Premise
You’re a bald man with a mustache in a future prison where you are forced to run through a gauntlet of enemies to try and earn your backstory. Half of the time, the game’s UI showed Cyrillic letters, so I wasn’t always sure what was going on. A weird mutant/alien thing is constantly yelling at you in a crazy accent, making basic words nearly incomprehensible.
You’ll fight through a series of different locations as you attempt to reach the end and face a mega boss. To do so, you’ll earn data, with which you can empower your character at a meta-level, in combination with various per-run upgrades you can find. Every fight ends with a choice of going in two directions. One way may give you a new melee weapon while the other can refill your ammo.
Figuring all of this out was the hardest part of KIBORG, a game so easy (early on) once you know its basic systems and which gear will make you invincible, that it showcases how hard difficulty balancing is. As you complete runs, you’ll get a cutscene of backstory and unlock the next difficulty level. The early levels weren’t tough at all once I found out that the Guardian implant set was broken. Later levels are then nearly impossible to beat without focusing on ranged weaponry, and it’s never truly “fun”.
Combat and Gear
As you progress through the game, you’ll get enough data to unlock a pre-run choice of weaponry and upgrades. For weapons, you have a sidearm, a long-range weapon, and a melee weapon. The ranged weaponry does not break but requires hard-to-acquire ammunition. Melee weapons have about enough durability to last half of a fight and are mostly useless until you can upgrade them a dozen times over.
For implants, you have cybernetic implants, which give you passive abilities and change your appearance. Mutations that give you more passive bonuses but come with a negative. There are also four super moves to unlock, which require energy. The basic way to gain energy is to punch things, and you’ll use X for quick attacks, Y for heavy, and B for AOE moves.
What makes the game’s combat so easy is the left bumper lock-on system. Your super mustache powers (I’m guessing) let you fly 50 to 100 feet across a room to barrage any enemy while you’re holding the lock-on system. It is broken and turns the early parts of most runs into a boring button-mashing fest.
A is a dodge that you’ll need to use liberally, and the right bumper is a parry/block system that never felt accurate or fair. The game does a poor job of introducing systems to you, as well as making it clear when you’re doing a combo or why you’d want to. Combos require data to unlock, and if you’re using the left bumper lock-on rarely work.
The combat is floaty and unsatisfying. It feels both too easy and overly punishing. I’ve had runs where I was half-paying attention and just holding left bumper and mashing X, only to die in one or two hits to an overpowered enemy out of nowhere. Yet the next time I faced that foe, they barely hurt me and I killed them in five seconds.
Kinda Good Looking
While the art direction isn’t the strongest, KIBORG runs great and looks clean while doing so. Both on PC where I started and Xbox where I finished the game runs well, has a crystal clear image, and overall is pretty damned good looking for a game of this budget and scope. Some of the Cyborg looks are kinda neat, with a distinct look to differentiate each from one another. You’ll mostly mix and match outfits, which can look goofy as all hell.
The audio is a mix of terrible voice-overs, which are routinely hilarious, and generic guitar riffs. Sound effects are muted and dull, neither getting in the way nor helping the action. Your AI guide sounds like an AI voice, with zero inflection or emotion in anything being said, so it probably is just computer-generated.
The game received numerous patches on Steam and a few on Xbox while I was playing. I’m not 100% sure what changed, as it was rock-solid performance and bug-wise, my entire playthrough. While it isn’t a good or fun game, it is competently made.
Wrapping Things Up
KIBORG caught my interest with its good looks, and quickly lost it with its bland and unsatisfying gameplay. Using some of the best rogue-lite tactics can’t help this one in the end, as its hilariously bad voiceover work and boring, repetitive combat make it a slog.
KIBORG
Played on
Xbox Series X & PC
PROS
- Solid graphics and performance
CONS
- Unsatisfying combat
- Broken difficulty
- Terrible voiceovers
- Mediocre progression
