SOLEIL, the makers of Naruto To Boruto: Shinobi Striker and Ninjala, along with publisher 110 Industries, has produced a game that promises to be Ninja Gaiden meets Cyberpunk, two games with two very different experiences. This is Wanted: Dead was hyped up to combine swordplay with the John Wick style of “Gun-Fu.” SOLEIL and 110 were awesome enough to let me try Wanted: Dead; I wish to thank them first before I disappoint them with my thoughts on this game…
Wanted: Dead takes place in an alternate timeline where we follow the Zombie Unit, a branch of the Hong Kong Police made up of a rag-tag group of war criminals who were given their freedom in exchange for their services. Players take on the role of Hannah Stone, a half-augmented (former) war criminal who is a master swordswoman struggling with her new law-enforcing role who must play by the rules while trying to uncover a corporate conspiracy.
Now, onto the game itself… I want to start off with the positives about this game first because, sadly, there’s little. The game’s art is good, the soundtrack is amazing, and the point system that gives you health and points to buy skills keeps combat interesting. The claw game, where you can play and unlock unlockables, is probably the most engrossing thing in the whole game… that’s it.
The controls for the game first come off as intimidating as it makes it feel like there’s a lot you have to do in order to survive, but in reality, if you go into it with the mindset that this is a hack-and-slash game where you can use a gun from time to time, you’re OK.
The sound really needs to be mixed better; the first level takes place in the middle of a thunderstorm, and the thunder sound effect is on repeat. The worst part of the game is the voice acting… good god. No one knows how to feck’n enunciate! Lines of dialogue don’t match up with the emotions for the scenes (and in many cases overlap), and the worst offender to underselling their performance is our lead! She and most of the voice cast deliver lines that would make Neil Breen’s acting Shakespearian. Christ, since this game is heavy on Anime tropes, they should have cast anime voice actors. I mean, I’m shocked at how lackluster Stefanie Joosten’s performance was, and she played Quiet in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain; now that I remember, her character never really spoke. It’s probably a good thing. I should also note that a few times, the enemies sound like they were not voiced by actors but by AI Text-to-speech software that makes this line delivery Oscar-worthy!
Another big thing that bothered me is the conflicting lore of the one character, Cortez. He only speaks by way of using sign language and, in one scene, is clearly shown not covering his ears while everyone else is when they set off an explosive. I thought those two hints thrown in made it clear that the devs created a deaf character that, regardless of his deafness, he’s still able to kick some ass… but nope, his lore is that he’s just a selectively mute asshole, they had an excellent opportunity to do something new, but they messed that up too.
Gameplay is 50/50 to me. When you first start the game, you can pick whatever difficulty you want; I went with regular because it was either that or two harder difficulties. They really, REALLY need to nerf the miniboss ninja character you encounter in the first level. You are hit once, and you’re dead and have to restart the whole section again. I died so many times at this part that the game asked if I wanted the difficulty lowered even more to a “Neko” difficulty; Neko is Cat in Japanese, OK, no biggie, but now Hannah is wearing cat ears. Stuff like this is not new, with games mocking you for going with an easier difficulty, but in this case, they made a miniboss god-tier strong right out of the gate and practically impossible to beat; this feels like a big middle finger by the devs, especially since the miniboss is still insanely powerful even on the “easiest” difficulty.
The game touts that Hannah has 50 finishing moves, but so far, I’ve only seen five or six moves repeating. As mentioned before, towards the top, I had more fun playing a claw game minigame than the game itself. This is where more issues with the game come in; I notice that there’s too much going on that you can do. Hannah can either play the claw machine game to unlock collectibles, go to a gun range (and play multiple gun-related minigames), have a ramen-eating contest, and sing karaoke (both done in the rhythm style gameplay, like Dance Dance Revolution), along with the main game storyline itself.
Overall, Wanted: Dead looks like it had a lot of promise but failed hard as it tried to be many things, and one of the things it chose not to be was a good game. Atrochious voice acting, mediocre rinse-repat cyberpunk story/plot, poor sound engineering, repetitive combat with little variety, overpowered bosses that can’t be beaten unless you’re playing the game on the easiest difficulty. I don’t know if the game is trying to be a parody or something, or if it’s trying to tell a message, but either way, this is a hard 4-10 from me.
If you’re interested, Wanted: Dead is available now for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
