Riddled Corpses EX – PS4 review

Review by Kieran Sutton

Riddled Corpses EX is the PS4/Vita version of the twin stick action / arcade 8 bit shooter developed by developer Diabolical Mind who seem to be running with a theme of 2d, old school looking games with an anime girl on the artwork and hordes of demons to slay… So let’s get to it.

Story/Characters

The story could be boiled down to a few words but I’ll do my best to capture the apocalyptic scale. The science went badly. Now demons. But, like loads of demons. An extraordinary amount of undead and demons. In the hours I’ve invested I’ve slayed thousands of foes, the shambling corpses exploding into red pixels or a fiery blaze. The characters didn’t really seem to matter and the only reason you’d differentiate them is the weapon and speed balancing. Once you’ve found one with a suitable shot speed and adequate damage for you the actual narrative could leave a lot to be desired but then again – who’s buying an arcade shooter for the plot developments? I certainly wasn’t but blink and you’ll miss it; apparently, there are cops… from the future?

Audio/Visual

The levels look unique and uninvitingly crammed with undead but the overall visual impression left wasn’t one to remember. The hordes of enemies quickly blur into the same old sprites and even the enemy projectiles are mostly the same purple-red rings regardless of the beast firing them. I did like the look of all of the bosses, who are equal parts grotesque and horrifying flesh mounds made of murder.

The soundtrack however is absolutely killer; you even have the choice of a new or classic beat to provide the perfect high energy back ground music for your bullet barrage and zombie slaying mayhem.

Gameplay

With almost no learning to do I found this game great to just jump in and out of; you’ve got to move and shoot. Of course the complexity builds and early on the sheer volume of enemies is daunting; you’ll need to grind out a few waves before dying and spending that hard earned gold on new or current character upgrades. You can also pop some of your coinage into explosives, additional lives or time stops to give you a strategic edge as you burn through the story mode and I loved how easy it is to have a buddy drop in straight away. I enjoyed the boss fights but found that the balance throughout the levels to be all over the place, a few barely a challenge while other sections were just a torrent of trouble right at the start. Aside from the story mode you’ve also got the arcade (beat the game in one session) and survival (endless) mode to really give you the mindless murder-fest we all need sometimes.

Summary

While not an absolute winner in my book Riddled Corpses EX does fill a gap. I could sit and sink a few more hours in but got pretty close to exhausting what the game had to offer. Good fun while it lasts but unlike the hordes of the 8bit undead it’s unlikely I’ll be coming back for more.

Overall score 5/10