Succubus With Guns has a fantastic core idea but fails to execute it due to its overreliance on premade assets making what could have been a genuinely fun game feel more like a simple asset flip.
Succubus With Guns is a rather interesting game for a lack of better words. On paper, a campaign style third-person shooter that has you play as a scantily clad demoness mowing down hordes of the undead sounds like a pretty solid game idea. However, the developer and publisher of Succubus With Guns, Satur Cat, hasn’t exactly executed that idea very well, and the game ultimately feels like nothing but missed potential.
We play as a succubus, a sex demon from Medieval folklore, who wakes up after being summoned in a demonic summoning ritual. What our protagonist doesn’t know is that the ritual has gone awry, and now most of the world’s people have been turned into zombies, including those who summoned her. Our demoness protagonist must now take up arms and travel through hellish realms to purge them of the undead horde.
In the various hellscape arenas where you will be traveling to, the player will find that the succubus has a wide arsenal of weapons she can use against the legion of the undead. From pistols to rocket launchers, our protagonist has plenty of weapons at her disposal. But you will need to be careful not to waste ammo because while there are health and ammo pick-ups, you may not find the right type of ammo for the gun you are currently equipped with.
What do you do if you find yourself without a weapon? Have no fear as our demoness isn’t entirely defenseless. When you run out of ammo, the succubus will switch to swiping melee attacks, but melee attacks will also deplete your stamina bar, similar to games like Dark Souls. Stamina is important as you will need it to dash across the arena to get pick-ups. This sounds very promising but sadly you will have to significantly lower your expectations.
What type of gameplay can the player expect from Succubus With Guns? It’s a third-person shooter that has you face off against the undead. So, is it like Evil West? No. Well, you also play as a sexually charged female lead who uses guns to slay her enemies. So, is Succubus With Guns like Bayonetta? Also no. You fight hordes of enemies with a large array of weapons in hellish landscapes. Is the game like Doom? Oh, definitely no. Okay, then, what can we expect from Succubus With Guns? The simple answer to that is that it’s an asset flip…well, not exactly.
Calling Succubus With Guns a simple asset flip game wouldn’t be fair since there has been some effort put into designing the titular succubus, as well as certain gameplay mechanics. However, the unique ideas that are present struggle to shine through because everything else is a premade asset. From animations to character and weapon models, everything is a game asset made by someone else. This makes the game incredibly jarring both visually and in terms of gameplay and sours the entire experience.
The game’s visuals consist of an odd mix of cartoony stylized environments, anime character models, and semi-realistic looking weaponry that feels like it belongs in a Grand Theft Auto title. None of these visual elements work together, and it just makes the game confusing to look at. The game feels less like an actual game and more like something you would find in Garry’s Mod or Roblox. The reason why none of the assets jell together correctly is because they were never intended to go together and were made by separate people for different types of games.
The same can be said about Succubus With Guns‘ combat, which consists of a barebones third-person shooter system copy-pasted without any changes made to it. The system does work in the sense that, yes, you do shoot things in a third-person perspective, but there is no flair or anything else to it besides that. It feels incredibly stripped down and basic, which is the point of a premade combat system. You’re supposed to use it as a base and build onto it… but
Succubus With Guns doesn’t do that. Even though the combat system is premade, it’s still not a very good one. Aiming in this game feels incredibly slow, and when you’re fighting hordes of zombies, you don’t want to be wasting time constantly adjusting your crosshair. Even when you aim at a target, you will still most likely miss and waste ammo. Which is something you do not want to be doing.
Despite the developer’s overreliance on premade assets, there are some good original ideas in the game, such as the revival mechanic. When your health bar gets depleted, your screen will turn grey, and a timer will appear at the top of the screen. When in this purgatory-like state, the succubus has increased movement speed but cannot hurt enemies.
The player must then collect glowing clusters of red energy to fill the succubus’s health bar before the timer runs out. The amount of health you revive with is determined by the number of clusters you have collected. This is actually a fantastic revival mechanic and keeps the action going and doesn’t break the flow of combat.
Another part of the game that seems to have care put into it is the succubus herself. From her body physics to custom animations that have her sway her hips seductively from side to side when idle, a lot of work has been put in to make our protagonist have sex appeal. Even non-sexy aspects of her design have had plenty of effort put into them, such as her demonic horns and claws that glow like a burning fire.
As mentioned earlier, simply calling Succubus With Guns an asset flip game isn’t a fair judgment, as the game does have some genuinely good ideas. However, these ideas are brought down by all the premade assets used within the game and so they don’t get a chance to shine through. Succubus With Guns feels like a genuine attempt at making a game; however, it doesn’t reach its full potential. This review is not meant to dissuade the developer from developing more games, but rather to be something that they can learn from.
If you want to give it a try Succubus With Guns is currently available on Steam, and also stay tuned to GamesCreed’s game reviews for the latest updates
