As has been thoroughly established to this point, I love me some roguelike action. Bring on the chaos and unpredictability of well-made procedural levels, over-the-top action, and then the inevitable degree of challenge that comes with those things as well. Of course, having seen and played so many of them my expectations have also been raised over time. The best of them do more than just include meta progression and some procedural design though, they have an element of risk and reward, and hopefully some game-changing elements that help each run feel fresh and a little unpredictable.

The good news is that Clawpunk at least succeeds in some of these goals. Mixing together a need for careful jumps, some in-your-face combat, as well as some well-utilized ranged shooting, this is a game where you’ll generally need to stay on the move. One reason for that is that the levels tend to be full of enemies of various types, milling about, and once you’ve got their attention they’ll come for you. The other is that random traps and explosive barrels tend to be peppered everywhere, and given that some of these will make an explosive mess you don’t want to be around, when they kick off a massive chain reaction things can get dangerous. The thing is, in general you’re rewarded for this sort of chaos, so you’ll need to skirt on that razor’s edge if you want to more quickly get to unlocking new cats to fill out your roster, which you’ll need to get further in the game since apparently cool cats don’t have time to bleed, they just go through their nine lives and then start over.

That’s kind of where the experience suffers for me, in the area of what sort of chaos it is you’re contending with. It turns out that not all procedurally-generated things are alike. There are types that are well-planned and implemented, sometimes getting to the point where most areas feel like they were designed. Then there are those like this where the stages are different when you get to them, but it all feels a bit basic. Sure, the different materials will make it so not everything can be destroyed, limiting your ability to control the flow of action, and sometimes requiring you to jump into dicey situations. That’s fine. All the same though a number of runs in, it all feels a bit too haphazard, and against some of its well-polished peers that’s disappointing. Unlike side-scrolling action that includes some verticality for an added degree of challenge, the inherently vertical design also likely contributes to the ultimate lack of true variety since there’s only so much horizontal space to work with.

Given how much I’ve generally enjoyed so many of these titles, on paper Clawpunk seemed like it would be a good fit for me. Unfortunately, in the playing something just didn’t click, and while I can understand where it can have some appeal, it feels a little too rough around the edges to recommend. There’s no doubt that some people may enjoy it, but in the overall scheme of things when being judged against its peers, this just feels like more of a middling result. It does offer something that feels quite different from the norm, but that doesn’t mean that it has obvious sustainable appeal.