tldr; combat generic, fantastic writing, lore and setting. Runs great on older machines.

Combat
Typical early 2010s spectacle fighter with your timed combo chain. It's fun, not bad but nothing new either. I remember back in the day this was being compared to Oni and the command deck system from Birth By Sleep because you "build your combos" but like it's more DND RPGish build your combos than fighter game build your combos. Like you can change the effects of what heavy and light attacks do but I am not sure if I am seeing any changes in your actual animations/moves or at least it's not well communicated when choosing.

So if you're here for combo customization... Go play River City Girls 2 or Undergrowth.

Setting
This game has so much style that is incomparable. I don't mean the cyberpunk neo-city props and such either, I am referring to the digital areans and projected hologram effects used throughout the game that create this extremely grounded and plausible future. I genuinely do think we're heading towards a world with non-physical light/digital signage like what is seen in this game with the invention and consumer interest of products like the Apple Googles and Smart Glasses (evil garbage).

The presentation reminds me of games like DMC Reboot, Mirrors Edge and Metal Gear Rising.

The Writing Aged Like Wine
The story is paced kind of like episodes of a show in my opinion with a first and second half that can be smashed in 20-30 minutes tops. You can navigate these seamlessly too if you're familiar with this era of games and the tropes devs really like (chase scenes, building scaling, blah blah blah).

I started playing this game because of I remember the story being dystopian cyberpunkish hellhole that that takes place after a civil war caused by extremist and populist. The architecture of the world is justified by the fact that is an intended restoration upon destruction. Tech companies seize the power struggle and become oligarchs that make their product a staple to survive daily life while also militarizing it against the lowest on the social hierarchy. It just seems like a natural progression that tech companies would move on to capitalizing off our memories. They already capitalized off socializing. The writers did a great job predicting the vibes of the future. I live in the richest country on the planet with an economy dependent on 10 tech companies betting on AI with a military complex that is adopting AI war technology. It's strange when scifi feels so relatable.

Whether it be harvesting our data to use against us or harvesting our memories there are a lot of overlapping themes between current events and the lore of this game's world.

Annoying Garbage
The tips and tutorials are poorly timed and intterupt alot of really immersive gameplay moments in the first two hours. You also can't disable the stupid combo timing tip without knowing how to mod UE textures (someone please do this, thank you).

At the age of seven I was introduced to the computer in 2004, my grandmother shackled me to it. Decades later I am still shackled.

With that information I have to say that this game is like walking through a museum and probably one of my top 10 favorite indie games of all time. The low poly graphic aesthetic does not compromise or lose quality at any point in the game. Every world feels jam packed with visual eye candy. Every world does a great job physically representing parts of entertainment technology and the internet. The lighting, fog and particle effects are used so well it makes sense why this game does not have graphics settings outside of presets. I found myself taking screenshots in tons of areas and making gifs out of video clips from my favorite ambient locations. This is one of those games you could leave on another screen or TV of someone doing a let's play. It is visually astounding, it is a work of art. The dialogue is all just well written from the storefronts to the character dialogues to the little stupid stuff. All text in this game is either funny, big-brain lore exposition, or copyright DMCA avoidance and I loved every bit of it.

Some other random notes about the game:
The camera is an interesting item. At the start you use it to collect likes for taking pictures of what "someone" would consider great shots. Later on you unlock the glitch lens that reveals a distorted reality where you use eyeballs to open hidden passages. I like how this ability is presented because it gives this uncomfortable ease when the music distorts and the filter changes to this murky sepia. Then you find the eyeballs and open the passage and immediately turn it off. You don't like how things look but seeing things this way gets you what you want. I adore this element because it gives me this vibe of having to look at things from another much more challenging perspective, only to return to our tech haven escapist vision of the world. Maybe it's reality for as it is, this ugly poopy place that we pretend is doing well. Perhaps it's reality for those who don't get to have the glamor of going viral and winning 1 million dollars in Geocity. Maybe it's just a powerup in a game.

I am not anti-weed but I enjoy how this 2018 game shows the absolute most negative aspects of stoner culture during a time when 420 culture was really peaking. Between Chronic the Hedgehog and the ads for weed in the game it's very clear the developers were around stoners or are/were potheads themselves. Chronic is slow in unmotivated, the weed ads you click on make jokes about how smoking pretty much makes you not care about ♥♥♥♥♥♥ your life can be and the rut you're in. No the developers don't hate weed, it's just another form of escapism when overconsumed just like social media or entertainment technology such as the internet that is often referenced in game. Maybe it's also middlefinger to people who miss the nuance of the environmental storytelling? "They musta been on drugs to make this game!"