Obey Me, by developer Error 404 and publisher Blowfish Studios, is a top-down holy punk brawler where the player slashes through an army of demons, zombies, angels, and robots with the help of their hellhound. The player is graded as they progress levels, encouraging them to string combos and avoid damage like they would in God of War or Devil May Cry. It also features asymmetric couch coop, where player one plays as the soul hunter, Vanessa, and player two plays as Monty the hellhound.
The game starts in the office of a devil named Ammon, here on Earth. He is in a turf-war with the forces of Satan, and dispatches Vanessa to assassinate a demon who had been getting on Ammon’s nerves. Obey Me delivers exposition primarily through dialogue. Cutscenes take place only between levels, and they are signaled by vibrantly colorful illustrations. All cinematics are delivered using the in-game engine and are usually shown through some character making a grand entrance before everyone becomes a talking head for two or three minutes.
The core gameplay loop is pretty simple: beat the snot of out of monsters with bombastic combos where you juggle a myriad of weapons while utilizing your Hellhound to come in for a big finish. One major mechanic of Obey Me is the use of the Spirit Meter, which allows Vanessa to fuse with Monty to dish out major damage. Generally speaking, when Vanessa deals damage to a baddy, she fills up their spiritual energy. When their meter is full, she can then call in Monty to deal a high-damage attack that empties the baddy’s soul gauge and allows Vanessa to fill up their own.
When Vanessa has enough juice, she can then perform a fusion with Monty, which greatly increases her attack power, the rate she fills enemy soul gauges, and provides her with a combo-finisher. This gives the player the option to either rack up raw damage with one weapon, or control manipulate the spirit energy of Vanessa and her enemies so she can completely overpower them after she transforms. I found myself doing the latter during difficult fights as fusing with Monty allows you to regenerate health.
While fighting hordes of badass demons is the major draw of this game, the set pieces and traps the developers put into place kept me engaged between fights. The levels are set in a plethora of modern environments and defamiliarizes them with the destruction the demons have caused. Fighting through inner city slums becomes all the more challenging when strange, fleshy plants spit acid at you and the floor is covered in puss-filled landmines. Later, you fight stronger demons in an abandoned shopping mall, which quickly becomes its own hellscape covered in magic traps, death spikes, and spinning flamethrowers. My favorite level was a bank office, which was filled with cartoonish security systems such as turrets, lasers, and exploding drones. It also helped ground the fictional world of the game closer to reality, as you had to be careful not to hurt the panicked office workers, or else you would lose experience points.
The levels in general are somewhat maze-like, and they conceal collectibles such a lore books written by a fictionalized Aleister Crowley, and pickups which increase your maximum health. While I would never knowingly turn down the opportunity for either of these items, I often found myself with low health and unsure if I would survive bullet hell the game had waiting for me in one of its many corridors. I often found myself lost between sections, retracing my steps and dodging the same flamethrowers and beds of nails just to be sure I didn’t miss out on any collectibles.
The boss fights are uniquely challenging. Most of the bosses stand out their own gimmicks, strengths, and weaknesses. Some bosses are more aggressive and like to apply pressure with powerful attacks that knock you down, while others turn their arena into obstacle courses the player has to survive while they complete an auxiliary objective, such as destroying a magic crystal to render the boss vulnerable. Some of the bosses function like bigger, meaner versions of the basic enemies you encounter, and often share the same weaknesses. In one particular boss fight, I struggled against a pair of demon-witches until I started using a pair of recently-acquired gauntlets. The gauntlets let you punch like a Jo Jo’s Bizarre Adventure character, and they also let you tether enemies like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. These babies melt witches and other monsters that fly around and attack with ranged attacks. Unfortunately, they didn’t provide enough stagger to be useful against other types of enemies, and their start-up animations were slow enough to render you a sitting duck.
While progression is marked primarily by you getting new weapons and Monty getting new forms, there is also a light RPG aspect that encourages you to take your power fantasy to further heights. As you slay monsters and explore levels, you get soul crystals, which you can redeem to upgrade either your weapons or Monty, unlocking new abilities and attacks in the process. As some weapons are more effective against particular enemies than others, I found myself trying to spread my XP across my portfolio instead of specializing. This resulted in some weapons becoming obsolete as they failed to do enough damage in later parts of the game. Keep in mind that I started my playthrough on hard mode, which probably contributed me feeling like I was barely keeping up with the game’s difficulty curve.
Finally, I want to discuss the tone of the game. The art style and illustrations have a comic-book feel, and the character’s design bordered between western-anime and fantasy. The crime-ridden, bombastically cruel world in the context of old-testament mythos it employs are fascinating from an atmospheric perspective, however, tone is shaped by the characters who inhabit it, and more specifically, the language they employ. Vanessa and Monty are foul mouthed, chaotic-neutral hitmen who are only out for themselves. Vanessa is propelled by her ubiquitous anger, and all she wants is a break from her hectic job, and not be living in poverty. Monty is pure id, unfiltered, and driven by his appetite for literal garbage. They are at the bottom of Hell’s dominance hierarchy, and fight to emancipate themselves from it.
Obey Me does struggle with its framerate, however. This was a persistent problem whenever there were a lot of enemies. This often brought combat and exploration to a crawl, completely skewing my reaction speed. It was even worse during sections that were more like bullet-hells than anything else. There was another glitch in the boss fight against Marchosias. After he grabs Monty, he won’t release his grip after sustaining damage, and will remain frozen.
I enjoyed Obey Me, the aesthetic was stylish and its general progression kept me happy with a steady supply of new weapons, techniques, and transformations for my best hellhound buddy. The collectible books hidden throughout the game are a must-have for players who are interested in the lore. I binged it pretty hard and recommend this game to people who enjoy being graded on how efficiently they can brutally decimate hordes of demons. I just wish the framerate were consistent. I give Obey Me a 7/10.
Check Out the Obey Me Trailer:
Obey Me is available now available digitally on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC via Steam for $19.99 / £17.99 / €15.99 / $24.99 AUD with English, French, German, and Spanish language options. The Nintendo Switch version will be available later this year.
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I live and work in Portland, Oregon. I've been an achievement hunter ever since beating Mario 64 and collecting all the stars at the tender age of four. My most recent gaming achievements include getting all trophies for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and beating Dark Souls 3 without leveling up or using weapon upgrades.
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