Holy Shoot Review

If you've been keeping up with the indie shooter scene lately, you might have noticed that the best ideas don't usually come from big-budget studios. AAA FPS games typically stick to tried-and-true formulas, but indie developers keep trying new things, taking risks, and giving players a rush. Recent hits like Scare Ritual, Trapang, Turbo Overkill, and Fashion Police Squad have all shown that smaller teams can be more creative and stylish than larger teams.

Tail Era Interactive has entered this space with Holy Shoot, a roguelike first-person shooter made in Unreal Engine that is currently in early access. The idea is wonderfully simple: go down to the depths of hell, grab a bunch of crazy weapons, and kill wave after wave of demons while enjoying the bright, cel-shaded comic book art style.

Holy Shoot makes it clear from the start that it doesn't want to be a gritty, realistic military shooter. It's loud, colourful, and very much like an arcade game. It wants you to move quickly, shoot quickly, and feel strong while you do it. The speed is nonstop, the weapons are crazy, and the screen is constantly exploding with visual feedback.

Sometimes the input is too much, but it's hard to argue that this game is meant to keep your adrenaline levels high the whole time. Even though it's still in early access, it has the basic elements of something great: tight gunplay, striking art direction, and enough personality to make you smile while you kill demons.

The game's story isn't too complicated. Tail Era Interactive knows that you don't want complex stories or moral quandaries. The basic idea is that demons have taken holy objects, and it's your job to get them back. In the current build, Satan, Asus, and Mammon are the demon lords who protect each artefact. They each rule over a themed area.

Satan rules over a classic fire-and-brimstone hell, Asus rules over a strange neon-lit palace of lust, and Mammon rules over a vault full of gold that is full of greed. Before you start fighting each boss, there is a short animated introduction that gives you some background without slowing down the action. This is the right thing to do in a game like this. No one came here to watch fifteen-minute cutscenes when they could be blasting demons into big comic book pieces.

The structure is simple but works well once you get into a run. You pick a character, each with their skills, and then you go into an arena where you have to fight off waves of enemies before facing a boss. In the early access version, you can play as either Supersonic Samuel, who focuses on aggressive gunplay with damage boosts and infinite ammo bursts, or Toshiko Techno, who brings gadgets, cloaking, and turret deployment to the fight.

Both begin with the same basic revolver, but their skills make you want to play in different ways. Samuel gives you points for charging straight into the fight, blowing enemies apart up close, and keeping the pressure on. Toshiko is more about positioning. She uses her powers to set traps, stay on the move, and weaken enemies before going in for the kill.

There are a lot of different weapons to choose from, which keeps things interesting. You can find regular weapons like SMGs, shotguns, and rocket launchers, as well as more unusual ones like crossbows, melee power gloves, and grenade launchers that explode.

Weapons come in different levels of rarity. Higher levels can be equipped with perks that speed up reloading, add elemental effects, or make critical hits do more damage. You can upgrade your loadout as you go by changing weapons often because loot drops every day. You can also reroll weapon perks, which gives you some control over your build instead of leaving everything to chance.

Movement is another essential part of Holy Shoot's design. The arenas are small, and enemies are aggressive, so it's easy to get surrounded if you stay in one place. You need to be able to sprint, jump, and dash to stay alive, and a lot of enemy attacks are easy to see coming if you pay attention.

It doesn't quite reach the level of hyper-mobility found in ULTRAKILL, but it does make you move to a rhythm—attack, move, attack again, rather than hiding behind cover. The game's true identity comes out in combat, for better or for worse. 

The graphics are inspired by Borderlands and XIII, with thick lines, heavy shading, and comic book sound effects that splash across the screen when you hit big. It's wonderfully over-the-top, making every kill feel like a page from a comic book.

There are a lot of different kinds of enemies, like melee goblins that swarm you, snipers that shoot from a distance, spellcasters that teleport, flying skulls, and turret statues that don't move. As you move forward, these kinds of enemies start to show up together, making you have to deal with multiple threats at once.

The best part is the boss battles. Satan throws giant fireballs and lava waves, Asus dances around in a dazzling, chaotic display of neon projectiles, and Mammon tries to bury you under golden death traps. These fights are significant events with lots of personality, but if your build is strong enough, you can tear them apart in seconds.

The biggest problem with the current combat experience is that there is too much visual noise. The screen can get so busy with particle effects, huge floating damage numbers, perk icons, health bars, fairy companion dialogue, and a lot of enemies and projectiles that it's hard to know what's going on.

You might get hurt without knowing what hit you, or you might lose track of an enemy in the noise. It can be too much to handle, especially in the busier arenas, without options like a field-of-view slider or the ability to change the size of the UI.

In the cathedral hub, you can spend points you earn on permanent upgrades to move up in the game. You can increase your weapon damage, max health, or cooldowns by using the skill tree, which is divided into offence, defence, and utility. It's nice to get stronger over time, but the problem is that it feels like it's going too fast.

All the perks cost the same, and a lot of the challenges that give you extra money are so easy that you can get points quickly. The game starts to lose its appeal after you've unlocked enough upgrades. If you only heal when you kill someone, you can be almost impossible to kill in the early waves.

If you stack enough damage buffs, bosses become nothing more than big target dummies. To keep players interested for a long time, the developers will probably need to slow down progress or add more challenging levels.

Holy Shoot looks great. Everything stands out in the cel-shaded style, from the characters and weapons to the details of the environment in each domain. Satan's hell is a fiery landscape with rivers of glowing lava and molten rock. Asus's lair has a mix of deep reds and bright neon lights that make it feel both sexy and scary. Mammon's domain is full of gold, from the coins on the ground to the gilded buildings that rise above you.

Weapons look great in first-person, with big models and animations that feel good. Explosions and muzzle flashes add style without making things more challenging to see, at least when the screen isn't already full of other effects. Performance is usually good at the beginning of a run, but it can drop during heavy firefights, especially when there are a lot of visual effects on screen at once, like during boss fights.

The sound design complements the chaos. The music is fast, loud, and full of energy, which is just what you need to mow down a lot of demons. There is a theme for each domain, but because there aren't many tracks, you'll start to recognize loops after just a few runs.

The revolver's sharp crack, the shotgun's deep boom, and the rocket launcher's explosive roar all sound good. Abilities also have their sounds, which are helpful in all the noise. There are still some problems with the mixing, though. For example, footsteps are too loud, some voice lines are too quiet to hear, and there is a bug that can make the minigun stop working altogether.

Holy Shoot is a mix of promise and rough edges, like many early access games. The main gameplay loop is already interesting, and the graphics are good enough to make it stand out in a crowded genre. The boss fights are fun to remember, the weapons are fun to try out, and the gunplay is just right at all times. 

But the visual clutter, uneven progression, and occasional performance problems keep it from being a must-play right now. The good news is that all of these problems can be fixed. This could become a cult classic among fans of chaotic shooters with some time, polish, and a few smart design changes.

Holy Shoot is a lot of fun for short periods right now. You play it when you want to have fun for twenty or thirty minutes without any filters. It's a party where too much is too much and subtlety is not essential. 

And even though it's not quite ready to be compared to the best in the genre, the base is strong enough that I'm excited to see what Tail Era Interactive does with it. If they can improve the balance, add more content, and let players have more control over the chaos, they will have something very special. It's a great time until then, sometimes even literally.