Kusan: City of Wolves

Kusan: City of Wolves was provided by PQube for review. Thank you!

I still remember back in the day when Hotline Miami first launched. The combination of retro visuals, electric music, and fast-paced, brutal gameplay made it one of the best games I had ever played. It was one of the first games where I felt like something small could be significant, and compared to the AAA titles I was playing, Hotline Miami was definitely on the smaller side. I haven’t seen many games. Try to recreate the magic that was captured back then, but Kusan: City of Wolves has gone for it. It has the same visual style and quick action feel, and apart from some obnoxious enemies, gives a very familiar feeling that brought me right back to what I loved so much about these kinds of games.

The gameplay loop is almost identical to Hotline Miami, with a few key changes that not only change our play style, but completely change up our way of thinking to deal with all the enemies around us. We are still going through each gorgeous pixel map in the top-down view, with the goal of killing every enemy on that floor. We have an assortment of tools at our disposal, including a mechanical hand, knife, and guns, all of which have their own uses. And once we are done with each floor, we will move to the next one, get our score, and then get some currency that we can use later on.

There are two key points that really elevate Kusan above other games like it: tools and upgrades. Both of these really go hand-in-hand, since the tools that we have truly change up our style once we modify them.

For every enemy, excluding bosses, they will all die in one hit. Whether it be from our punch, knife, or gun, they will all go down. Punching is our closest line of defense, which can take down any enemy that is close to us. However, this opens us up to getting killed ourselves, which also only takes one hit. That’s where our knife and guns come in. We can throw our knife at enemies that are near, but still have some distance. It’s a great tool to use to dispatch of multiple enemies while you’re readjusting yourself to punch. So, we can punch someone in front of us, throw a knife behind us, punch someone else, pick up that knife again, punch, and throw. The system blends together so fluidly, and it works so well.

Punches can also be charged up to throw enemies and environmental objects, including doors, further away. This can actually be used to kill other enemies and allows us to use the environment to our advantage. There’s something extremely enjoyable about being able to kill enemies around you, then charge up a punch and knock one enemy into another and make them both explode. Or even just busting down the door, strong enough that it smacks the enemy further away and kills them, just feels like an epic way to make an entrance into a bloodbath.

Guns are theoretically our first line of defense, which we can use to shoot. It won’t work on every enemy, as some have armor or shields that stop bullets, but it’s a solid way to keep dying to them. There are different guns we will get to unlock later on that augment our style, and I really did feel a difference between using a pistol and a shot shotgun, which changed up how I ran through the floor.

All these open up the possibilities of how we can tackle each of the floors and enemies on them, but it’s the upgrade system that truly makes it shine. As we keep playing through the game, we will get currency that allows us to open up our circuit board. This is where we will buy new skills and weapons and place them on the board to utilize them. If you enjoy Resident Evil 4’s inventory management system, this will feel very familiar.

Each upgrade in Kusan will take up spots on the grid; we have to mix and match with the ones we want to make sure they all fit. Some of these upgrades can be optimized, which reduces how many spots they take, but this uses a special currency we can get as we are going through missions.

There are two types of upgrades: ones that influence combat and ones that give us a gun. For the guns, we can only choose one at a time, but we can upgrade them for better rates of fire and more. However, there are other updates that completely change our moveset. It can range from something more simple, like increasing our movement speed, to completely adding new moves, like being able to juggle our knife when it’s thrown. This is actually one of my favorite upgrades, because it allows us to hit the knife with a punch after throwing it to knock it into other enemies to kill them. I cannot explain how satisfying it was to throw a knife at an enemy and then punch it into another player.

These are great systems, but there are some frustrating issues here and there. Out of all the enemy types, some of them are extremely annoying to deal with. The robot dogs that we destroy leave behind an electrical field that completely slows down our movement, which can kill the great flow of combat, in the enemies, that shoot guns or lasers, sometimes shoot way too fast. On top of that, some of the environmental objects can’t be shot over, which didn’t make a lot of sense. I can shoot over desks with computers, but I can’t shoot over an ammo crate? That led to my death a few times.

The level designs in Kusan are also a mixed bag. Some of them are straightforward and fantastic, but then there are others that just have too much going on, and it’s easy to get lost in the chaos. The one that stands out most to me is in chapter 2, where we have to run in the street to fend off enemies. Not only do we have to think on our feet and kill the enemies coming out of cars, but we also have to dodge incoming cars from both the enemies and random people driving through. I actually spent almost one whole night just trying to beat that level because I kept getting hit by cars or my punches were slightly off.

While the chaos in that level was frustrating, there are bits of it in every level. The choices and options we have to dispatch our photos make combat dynamic, but there are a lot of times where the chaos and all the enemies coming at us can be a little difficult to track. Some enemies can blend a little too much into the levels, and with some boxes blocking our shots, punches not always reaching the enemies, and ranged enemies coming out of nowhere, it can feel like too much. There were a few times where I actually had to take a break just because it got a little too obnoxious, and I wanted to relax.

Still, I would say it was a positive experience overall, and fans of Hotline Miami are going to love the gameplay loop. The story that comes along with it was also quite enjoyable and had me interested in the world and what was going on. We play as Jin, an ex-soldier who is recruited by a government agent to save a kid named Haru. The kid has been experimented on with Psionic powers, and now a group wants to steal Haru and turn her into a bomb.

The story stuck with me a lot. There’s a lot of gray area that starts to justify the group and their actions; well, the people we perceived to be trying to help start to show their true colors. The motivations and actions of each party start to come into question, and we see the turmoil of Jin as he understands the group's motives but turns away to protect what matters most to him. It’s hard. It’s a great story told in a unique graphic novel-esque format that still gave the intensity I was hoping for.

Kusan: City of Wolves - Steam Deck Performance

However, the most surprising thing about Kusan: City of Wolves is its performance on the Steam Deck. With the style of game it is, and how well Hotline Miami runs, I fully expected this to be a great game to play on the Deck. This was solidified a bit further when I saw it got the Verified badge. Sadly, I was somewhat wrong, and I’m still a bit surprised about it.

So, when I was first playing Kusan on the Steam Deck, the performance was quite poor. It would constantly stutter and drop due to extremely high CPU usage. For a game like this, I thought it was unacceptable. I was pretty dismayed, because it seems like the perfect thing to take on the go, similar to Hotline Miami. Thankfully, I checked again after it got an update, and it has improved somewhat.

It is now significantly more stable and sticks to the higher framerates more often. Because of that, it has become so much better to play on the Deck, and I couldn’t be happier. It actually feels pretty good to play, and I can almost recommend it, but there are a few issues that are still remaining.

Trying to play at 60 FPS still leads to some drops, and the CPU usage is still pretty high when running around the map quickly. Because that is a big part of the game, this is a common issue. But it’s not an impossible one to get around. While there may still be some drops, I did not feel them as much by setting the framerate to 55 FPS. This kept the gameplay smooth, my reaction times quick, and while the game did drop, it wasn’t something I could notice unless I was really paying attention and watching the framerate counter.

Even though there are still some drops, I don’t recommend dropping the framerate cap further. The game feels awful below 50 FPS, and it’s not a great way to actually play the game. Kusan is an experience that I would say requires 60 FPS, but 55 feels extremely close, and I would still consider it playable. But once you start going below that, it is no longer enjoyable. Because of that, I have to say this is going to be the best way to play the game on the Steam Deck. Seeing as how we can only change the resolution and enable Vsync in the options, there isn’t much more we can do to optimize.

Conclusion

Kusan: City of Wolves takes the formula I fell in love with in Hotline Miami in a different direction. It still has the mechanics I came to know and love, but splices in an interesting setting, intriguing story, and new tools to kill with upgrades that can drastically change our moveset. There are some frustrations with the types of enemies we can encounter and the environment getting in our way, but when everything clicks, it just feels amazing.

The Steam Deck performance is a little disappointing, since I expected a solid 60 FPS with a relatively low battery drain, but it is playable and enjoyable on the go. The minor compromise needed doesn’t detract from the experience, so I’d still say it’s a solid experience regardless.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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