SONOKUNI Steam Charts & Stats

I don't vibe with the constant "WOAH JUST LIKE HOTLINE MIAMI DUDE" in the reviews section. In terms of inspiration or basic formula? Sure. There's even in-game references to it. As a whole, though, SONOKUNI should be respected and looked at as its own unique kind of animal. More intricate and precise, with a lot less room for improvisational chaos during the combat sections. You cannot allow yourself to just stumble into a room, grab a shotgun, and pray you won't die while shooting like a madman. Here it's a lot more tactical due to the small sizes of rooms SONOKUNI restricts you to. So the gameplay loop starts looking sort of like: "Look at each enemy type, decide on the order you should try and finish them off, fail miserably, look at your death animation, recognze who struck you down, and make changes to the order within your hit list. Repeat x1000." Which I enjoyed! I also resonated a lot with the philosophical narrative that explores the fear of being completely forgotten within the unforgivingly picky grey mass of history, applied to an individual or a whole culture. The bright surreal visuals amplify the perception of this whole thing a lot as well. The soundtrack is phenomenal, by the way. Gonna buy it separately, for sure. I think only one of the songs out of the track list managed to feel a bit grating to my ears, but that might be connected to the absurd amount of time I spent trying to beat one of the levels, not gonna lie. So, all in all, It's god damn criminal that this game has under 100 reviews on Steam, because it should either be praised in videogame press as "a new cult classic" or get viral through a big ass video essay on YouTube, dissecting its contents.