Gori: Cuddly Carnage is the cutest hack-and-slash action game, developed by Angry Demon Studio and published by Wired Productions. Due for release on 29th August 2024.
The game takes place after toys, known as ‘Ultra Pets’, companions that never tire, don’t eat (usually), never need bathroom breaks, and are not ravaged by time, turn evil and mutate into grotesque versions of themselves. These evil toys refer to themselves ironically as The Adorable Army. Their plan is simple, ‘Cute or Die’ this leads them to destroy humanity as brutally as possible.
Welcome to the Cuddliest Apocalypse
The game kicks off after the apocalypse is in full swing. Humanity is no more.
We meet Gori, a cute humanoid ginger cat who is a rejected prototype of the ‘Ultra Pet’ created by an inventor, Professor Y, for the ‘Cool Toyz Inc.’ toy company. He’s joined by F.R.A.N.K., an overly excitable, somewhat unhinged hoverboard with front and back-mounted whip blades, and CH-1P, a melancholic AI.
It’s up to the trio to find Professor Y and stop the Adorable Army.
Their adventure takes them all over earth to defeat the Adorable Army’s generals and acquire parts for an ultimate weapon to take down the Adorable leader.
Claws and Blades and Bombs, Oh My!
Combat and traversal in Gori are a visceral dream.
Firstly, combat is made up of light attacks with F.R.A.N.K.’s mounted whip blades, these will mince up smaller enemies. Then we have the heavy attack, which comes courtesy of the whip mace you acquire early on. This makes short work of enemy shields and larger enemy defences. Combos can be achieved with variations of light and heavy attacks. Then we have the rockets, these are perfect for crowds, airborne enemies or stunning the minibosses. Boosting while holding light or heavy attacks supercharge them so you become a literal blender or vertical flipping wrecking ball. These are so gratifying to execute in crowds.
An added attack option or two would have been great for the later end of the game just to add some extra variety to your arsenal.
Speaking of execute, a stunned enemy can be executed once you see the R1 symbol floating over them. This launches our heroes into an instakill animation that truly never gets old. My favourite was decapitating an Ugly-corn and slam dunking the head back into its neck hole.
Moving on to traversal, I was apprehensive to see a game where main character is bound to a hoverboard for its entirety. I expected the movements to be floaty and hard to control with precision. I was instantly surprised to find Gori and F.R.A.N.K. handle impeccabley. The responsiveness of movements are instant, you turn on a pin and have access to a double jump (with comical spring sound effect), a dash/dodge and boost.
Platforming sections were an absolute blast. Going from precise jumps, to billboard wall rides, boosting and grinding with such an exhilarating flow.
Variety is the slice of life
The characters in gameplay have a slight cell shaded quality that ties in nicely with the moving comic panel style cutscenes. Gori and F.R.A.N.K. can be upgraded functionally and esthecially in the Cool Toyz Inc. Kiosk. A number of fur and eye colours, outfits for Gori and decals for F.R.A.N.K are available.
Each level in Gori has its own identity and isn’t just a copy and paste from other levels. There’s cities, an underwater museum, a Cool Toyz Inc. factory and more. The level of detail available to be found is amazing, and often times grotesque, I once found a slime dump pipe that was flowing with slime and body parts. That’s just the tip of the gore iceberg.
Speaking of gore, this game lives up to its main characters namesake. It’s gorey, without a doubt, you’ve got dismemberment, decapitation, clawing, eye piercing, and so much more. The finishers are unique for every enemy type and multiple finishers play at random. You’ll never be kept wanting for more gore, I giggled quite a lot at the sheer contrast of the cute, but evil, unicorns being eviscerated by the swift and brutal duo.
Enemy designs are plucked from so many nightmares. Unicorns in many different horrific versions, evil, demon, and flying. Alongside clowns, cycloptic giant hands, a bear with a skinless flesh face and so many more. There’s so much visual encouragement to destroy the Adorable Army as fast and horrificly graphic as possible.
Music and sound is another plus here, the music is upbeat, heavy and hard hitting to mirror the combat.
Throughout the levels you can often hear little whispers and giggles, in game or straight from the dualsense, the freakiest being a ‘psspsspss here kitty kitty’, that one unnerved me a few times.
Extra Clawriccular Activities
Each level has a key split into 3 pieces to be found as you make your way through. These keys unlock rooms within your spaceship HQ. Each room has secret unlockables I would encourage you to get.
These keys also unlock side missions to find untainted unicorns, to find something good in this horrific new world. Finding all the unicorns is a very worthwhile cause. You’ll see when you get there, it’s out of this world!
I would have liked to see more variety in the side missions. The races are fun and I wanted more of them.
Perfectionists and completionists can also try to get a perfect score in every level for being the fastest, getting the high score, scoring the highest combo and completing at the hardest difficulty. Not my thing but there’s a lot of replayability there for those that want more bang for your buck.
Joys
- Great cast of characters, genuinely funny.
- Impeccable movement controls.
- Varied enemy designs.
- Great soundtrack
- All that gore!
Cons
- More attack options would have been fun in later levels been
- More variety in the side missions.
