Those of us born before the new millennium have all experienced walking into a video game store, frantically looking for our next adventure. There was a time when we couldn’t keep one hand on a shelf and the other on our phone, Googling the ratings and reviews of the choice in front of us. No, we’ll have to hunt around for the games with the coolest covers, obscure games we’ve never heard of, games that may or may not have Cyber Ninja on the cover.
Many low-budget games are hack-and-slash games, and the genre is still alive today, from Metroid-style games like Dead Cells, all the way to FromSoftware’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. That’s why these types of games we look forward to today Silky smooth controls and flawless precision, a luxury few enjoyed in the past, but imagine if we could have both. It would be pure joy to be able to dash through hordes of enemies and mow them down with astonishing accuracy while everything else looks like the early 2000s. A long B-movie in game format. Featuring some of the worst cutscenes we’ve seen in modern times, embarrassingly cheesy dialogue and a story that could have been lifted straight from the American Ninja series, Soleil’s Wanted: Dead is all that, and then some.
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Here we play as a katana-wielding cop named Hannah Stone, and we’re part of the Zombie Unit, an elite force about to uncover a colossal conspiracy. We have some more or less competent colleagues to help us, and together we must clean up Hong Kong, which has become a den of criminals. After going through meticulous training, the first thing that happened was that we died. immediately. This is the first time, but certainly not the last. Our days ahead will consist of constantly looking death in the face, failing more often than we care to admit.
Wanted: Dead was developed by former Team Ninja employees, and anyone who has played Ninja Gaiden will know the brutal challenge that awaits you when you boot up the game. This is our first assignment and we feel we are ready. After an engaging introduction, we were filled with joy, energy and confidence, but were soon back on Earth. We are not heroes, just a defenseless little mouse among hungry cats. We barely made it through the entrance and were immediately surrounded by ruthless villains who mowed us down in a fountain of blood, realizing that this was going to be a trip we would never forget.
Wanted: Dead is old-school in many ways, but above all the high difficulty level stands out, bringing dormant memories back to life. After almost embarrassing attempts, we finally succeeded, but it always looks the same. We stab, we shoot, we die. Until the very end, with our hearts in our throats, we managed to stand there triumphantly. A feeling that cannot be described in simple words but simply has to be experienced. Even with a squad of as many as three fellow police officers accompanying us, the odds were dire, usually at least a dozen to one. Add to that delightful enemies firing at us from a distance while their companions fired at us with melee weapons, relentlessly trying to knock us out for good.
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As we slowly but surely upgraded our weapons and abilities, especially the parry and dodge rolls were vital to our continued survival, we still started to feel more and more confident, and sure enough it got easier, but even the two skills The tree is almost completely upgraded, it’s still definitely not a walk in the park. Wanted: Dead is a brutal experience, one of the toughest we’ve played in a long time, and every matchup feels delightfully chaotic, but that’s what makes the game so insane.
It’s so easy to get bored of the concept, dodge, attack, run, and die in a hail of bullets. Rinse and repeat. But because no two battles are ever the same, it’s pure joy to face a seemingly endless stream of enemies and watch them die before our eyes. That’s where Wanted: Dead excels, with over 50 different death animations, limbs flying, and skulls shattering. It’s violent and bold. It’s graphic, especially creative. Because Hannah uses her surroundings to come up with innovative ways to end her life, you don’t fall into one of the most common pitfalls when hacking and slashing: the lack of variety, where every fight and death ends up feeling exactly the same.
Speaking of dying, one of the most annoying parts of the game in our opinion is that you die so often and have to start over, running the same route again, killing the same enemies over and over again, but thanks to the gorgeous combat, Wanted : Dead manages to get away with that too. Not having to start over from where we die is also built on retro feel, autosave is just a naive dream for the future. But even though combat is the heart of the game, its bread and butter, there still has to be something to break. Breathing room and time to rest your battered trigger finger, there’s certainly no shortage of options here. 16-bit mini games, karaoke, ramen, cooking TV and cats. It’s all meant to serve as a distraction between bloody showdowns.
Wanted: Everything in Dead is overkill. It’s clichéd, deliberately ridiculous, and a definite homage to a bygone era. An often frustrating experience that requires constant undivided attention, it’s not for everyone due to the brutal difficulty level, but for those of us who have long dreamed of resurrecting Ryu Hayabusa, it’s a gift from heaven.