10 people found this review helpful
2 people found this review funny
Not Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 9.3 hrs on record
Posted: 26 Sep, 2022 @ 9:00pm

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Chicken Assassin: Reloaded is an action-clicker game that I expected a lot from, given its excellent review score. Ironically, this was one of the worst games I’ve ever played.

Gameplay
CA:R blends the worst elements of clicker games with bland RPG mechanics and horrifically boring combat. In a vacuum, it should be fine; I have a bit of a soft spot for clicker/idle games, I love RPGs, and side-scrolling brawlers are right up my alley. All of this potential goodwill is squandered almost immediately, thanks to my realization that this is a clicker game with no auto-clicking. You have to manually click for the entirety of the game. The only thing that breaks the monotony is the requirement that you aim your clicks at the enemies that periodically appear on your screen. Even after realizing how terrible the clicker mechanics were, I was hoping the RPG side would make up for it.

In a cruel twist, the RPG systems make an already bad game even worse. You have skills you can upgrade, but they mostly focus on simple stat boosts like extra attack or defense. There’s also an equipment and loot system that gives you small bonuses, as well as a clothing system that basically does the same thing. Altogether, you get a loop where you play a level, equip the loot with the biggest numbers, spend your money on upgrades, and repeat. You get slow, steady progress that doesn’t require strategy, skill, or even paying attention. It’s a truly mindless game, even for the clicker genre.

Presentation
The presentation is all over the place. Every stage has a completely different setting and theme, so while it’s definitely fresh, it’s also inconsistent. Nothing connects together, it’s simply a series of random settings with a few lines of dialogue trying to justify it.

Outside of the bizarre visual design, there’s another issue: the graphics themselves. Everything has a gross, hazy filter over it, and the parts that you can see clearly, look awful.

Another area it struggles with is sound design. As a clicker game, you are clearly going to be doing a lot of clicking, yet the developers decided to use the most generic sound effects for attacks. It’s torture hearing the same sound effect 1000 times per level for hours on end.

The music may have been the game’s high point, and that’s barely a compliment. Some songs are bad, but most range from mediocre to fine. I would never listen to it by choice, but at least it’s usually tolerable.

Writing
Most clicker games don’t have much of a story, and many lack one completely. CA:R on the other hand, features small story transitions for each level. You don’t get some grand tale, but it’s a few lines that help give a small narrative to the game. I thought the plot was mediocre and seemed like it was thrown together at the last minute.

Alongside the basic plot, you have painfully unfunny comedy. There are plenty of name puns where the first letters of the first and last name are swapped, and I guess that’s supposed to get a chuckle out of you. Most of the jokes seem to be going for goofy, zany laughs. For me, it came off as lazy, but humor is subjective and most players seem to enjoy it, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Bugs and Performance
There are a surprisingly large amount of issues for a game that is relatively simple. First, you have some terrible hitboxes for a clicker game. Instead of clicking on the actual graphic for an enemy, you need to click in a box above their name, which sometimes doesn’t include the whole enemy, and usually covers a lot of empty space too. I also managed to find a bug that probably should have been caught a while ago. Double-clicking the retry button after failing a level will spawn twice as many enemies. Obviously not a huge deal, but when a straightforward and easy-to-fix bug slips by like that, it shows how unpolished the whole game is. Finally, you have the crashes, of which I experienced three in less than 10 hours of play.

Verdict
I absolutely hated it. The overwhelmingly positive reviews raised my expectations quite a bit; I thought I was about to play one of the best clickers ever made. Yet once I got 15 minutes in, I realized it’s actually one of the most boring games I’ve played, even compared to other clickers. If all you want to do is click on enemies, then you may love this game. But if you’re like me and have higher expectations, this is a soul-crushing experience with little to no redeeming qualities.

1/10

Numerous bugs and minor performance issues running on: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, 16 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 3070
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2 Comments
ManlyMeatMan 24 Oct @ 10:22pm 
@Killakitty
Yeah, it's a very deep and complex game, I'm not surprised some of it went over my head
Killakitty 24 Oct @ 1:22pm 
You probably did not understand the game