Gori: Cuddly Carnage Review – Review
I’ve been eagerly anticipating Gori: Cuddly Carnage since its demo dropped on Steam back in 2020. Since then, the demo remained live but with little to no updates from Angry Demon Studios. Then in April, we finally got a release date and my excitement was once again rekindled. I mean, who’s not excited for an anthropomorphic cat dressed as Marty McFly wielding a vulgar trash talking Hoverboard and fighting murderous toy unicorns with knives for hands? But since my initial discovery in 2020, does Gori live up to the four-year hype I’ve made up in my head, or is it less than the B game of my expectations?
To answer that question, we really need to discuss the idea of a B game. B games as a concept originally came from the idea of games being AAA or indie, with an experimental middle section known as the B game. This was back around the PS3/Xbox 360/Gamecube era and there was more money to be spent on weird one-offs. Some of my favorite games are B games, like Psychonauts, Dante’s Inferno, Psi-Ops and Driver San Francisco, to name a few. Now the middle ground market for B tier games has all but fallen out, and we rarely see the likes of such games anymore. Enter Gori: Cuddly Carnage.
The game’s main premise is that Gori is a lost toy cat trying to make it back home to his professor owner, while also battling through waves and waves of killer unicorn toys (fittingly named murder-corns) led by a murderous jack-in-the-box. Then you have to complete a series of levels to build a special laser pointer to defeat your adversary. The levels are pretty linear in direction, but themed around varying toys like an arcade, doll house and carnival. They all have fun themes and are interesting enough to keep me moving forward, but they do suffer a bit in overall design. Thematically they are all pretty unique in their puzzle design but oftentimes it can be unclear where the next direction to go is. When they do include branching paths or more open space, backgrounds tend to blend together to the point of confusion. In one instance, I solved a puzzle in a room, but it was a dead end. The solution was to backtrack to a second room, complete that puzzle, and then completing both wings would initiate a chase sequence. I spent roughly ten minutes trying to figure out where to go in that first dead end room. It’s not the end of the world, but any time wasted feels bad.
The gameplay can be best described as a character action hack-and-slash game. Our hero, Gori, is a lovable little kitty that stands on his hind legs, dresses like Marty from Back to the Future and has a dedicated “meow” button (which is bonus points in my book.) Despite having only meows, Gori does enough to be cute and comedic when paired with his infamous Back to the Future 2 hoverboard that talks in a Borderlands ClapTrap kind of way with a lot of bleeped out vulgarity and wise cracks. The hoverboard’s comedic chirps are funny in short bursts but wear thin real quick; luckily, a simple “meow” response from Gori would usually save the moment for me. There’s voice acting, sometimes to the game’s benefit or its detriment. The comedy is hit or miss, with more misses than hits for me. Your mileage may vary.
The main action of Gori comes in two flavors: platforming and combat. Gori’s movement is solely based on F.R.A.N.K. the hoverboard, so they can glide, boost, jump, double jump, wallride billboards and grind rainbow rails. Since it’s a hoverboard, it’s all rather unwieldy. His movements are wild and unpredictable, and it’s easy to miss the landing or slide right off of them. Fortunately, it’s a quick respawn, but the process can be a tad frustrating from time to time, especially during gauntlet sections where you are being chased by something or boss battles that require precise movements to do any kind of damage.
Which brings us to the Cuddly Carnage’s combat, also completely via F.R.A.N.K. the handy dandy hoverboard with extendable blades (think the Blades of Chaos from God of War). There’s a basic hack and slash, but there’s also a heavy attack that breaks enemy’s shields. Gori also has his own shield that reflects enemy projectiles, which is helpful. Lastly, Gori has a bazooka that can fire projectiles against enemies with a time slowing effect to make sure you can accurately line up those shots. All moves can be enhanced by a boost meter that accrues over time.
The combat is definitely the stronger suit of the two gameplay elements because every piece fits together seamlessly, and the game does a good job of mixing in the different types of enemies. Slashing up enemies, then moving to do glory kills for health and boost energy, then grinding a rail while shooting other enemies all flows in a real satisfying way. By keeping combos going, you’re rewarded with a grading system and upgrade currency, but really it’s getting into that flow state that drove it all home for me. Hitting a perfect combo while still getting more boost juice or health pickups was definitely the high I was looking for, though running out of said boost juice would cause the combat to come to a screeching halt. That’s where I think I stand on the combat as a whole. It feels amazing when you hit that flow but really sucks once you’ve run out of boost and have to scramble to find a rail to grind or wall to ride to refill it. This can be mitigated through upgrades, but can feel bad early on.
The concept of the B game has largely been lost to time considering the risk to try something new at that budget point. Gori Cuddly Carnage feels exactly like those games did. It’s attempting to craft a unique IP with style and attitude, while experimenting within those older sensibilities–a throwback if you will. It still suffers from the problems that games like MediEvil suffer from: full of fun ideas with tons of personality but just not quite there when it comes to polishing and fine tuning. With Gori, the hoverboard platforming mechanics just aren’t as precise as they could be, frustratingly so, and that ends up being a lot of what you are doing in these levels. Especially with boss battles, the expectations of the game aren’t entirely clear and can leave you fumbling. Also this game takes a pretty steep hit in the graphics department due to the Switch’s lower power to handle Gori’s fur. I stand by my hype for this game and love the fact that these games can still exist in this space. I pine for the days of the B game, and will support devs who continue to hold that torch, but I also am realistic in that there’s nostalgia definitely clouding my lenses here.
