KIBORG is an upcoming fast-paced action game with rogue-like elements created and published by Sobaka Studio. KIBORG will place the player in the shoes of the character Morgan Lee as he fights on a prison planet set in a dark sci-fi setting, as you fight and progress Morgan can earn new enhancements to improve himself such as armoured limbs that grant a range of new buffs like extra armour, or new unique combo moves where the newly acquired parts will form to deliver a massive attack in the chain of the combo.

As you play, each mission will be randomly generated with environment and enemy types. You will encounter enemies that get close to punch, ranging in size up to brute-sized, or ranged targets with guns and electric ranged attacks, so you will need to keep aware of the surroundings and pay attention to what threats are in the combat zone, as no mission you will encounter will ever be the same from before.

As you clear a mission you will be able to pick what happens next with a rest period to either, restore lost health, unlock a new upgrade, or weapon to bring forward, in terms of combat missions there will be a display of the reward item which can give a slight heads up of what you may experience in the mission ahead, as the greater rewards will hold a harder experience ahead with how many foes there are to defeat.

At the end of each run, there will be a boss fight, most often it is just an enemy upsized that can deal out harder hits, it will still have the same behaviour of its type, so it can easily be dealt with.

The game does recommend a controller playstyle and has a very handy and helpful tutorial system in the menu, it will teach you every element of the gameplay from attacking, dash attacks, and the parry system which works great.

My only issue is when you land a parry, at times it will slow down the world allowing you to land counter hits in a short window, there is a 50% chance that when this happens your character will be slowed down while still regaining his posture, this can lead to missing the opportunity to land the quick attacks as intended.

Also, during the mission select screen the sensitivity went up, and my first time around did result in me picking the wrong missions, so be aware of which one you have highlighted as it is easy to swap off it. Visually the game is set in a dark sci-fi setting, so a bit of a cyberpunk theme world that is in ruins from urban chaos. The character models are all the same for each enemy type, they just come in different sizes if they are the featured boss for the run.

The visual of Morgan gaining his enhancements are what I liked, it shows the targeted limb being equipped with the new armour, which makes him look badass from rocking one armoured arm all the way to being fully suited up like Iron Man, each armour set will behave different in buffs, look differently and will be randomly assigned to the run you are playing.

In terms of audio, there is a steady flow of combat music throughout which adds to the gameplay, it does not drown out the sound of blows being landed as you beat your foes down. While there is a story present when you are moving down the mission log, I have not heard any voice lines for the main character at present during the demo version I have been playing.

The difficulty of KIBORG can spike too hard out of nowhere as you will need to manage your health as best you can, so thankfully there are rest periods to restore segments of health, get some extra buffs, or a random weapon to assist with the upcoming fights. There are no punishments for dying other than having to restart the run on the chapter again, which is fine as it may pay off better with the upgrades you may randomly get as you play to suit your preferred fighting style. As an example, I am a sucker for Blur enhancements, I like running in and landing fast punches in combos and ducking away, and Blur has the best stats and combos for this style of gameplay.

In conclusion, KIBORG is a fun and challenging roguelike game that will keep players active and hooked for a long time, everything being random as you play is always a great choice to add in. While there are very minor bugs, I do look forward to seeing how the overall release of KIBORG goes. There is sadly no official release date yet, but the good news is with a public demo on Steam, you can try it out and see how you fare in the world that KIBORG delivers.

Written by: Shane Walsh