It’s difficult to experience Otxo and not compare it to the top-down shooter Hotline Miami. With its minimal, pixel art visuals, simplistic yet effective core gameplay, and a penchant for visceral, bloody violence, Otxo shares much in common with Dennaton Games’ arcade-style hit. Where Otxo deviates, however, is in its general structure. At its core, it is a roguelike, challenging you to clear multiple floors of bad guys without dying, all the while augmenting your abilities with beverages laced with performance-boosting properties.

Because of this structure, Otxo is both a blessing and a curse. It doesn’t waste any time with needless exposition or pointless chit-chat; you’re here to shoot down some nasty gangsters, and the game does a pretty great job of cutting to the chase and letting you do what you came here to do. Now and then, the carnage will be broken up by short breaks at the bar, during which you can upgrade your abilities, but mostly, Otxo is about action, action, and more action.

So why is it a curse? Well, without much of a story to keep you motivated, repetition can seep in quite quickly. The game does mix things up a bit with boss battles, but given the nature of the procedurally generated locations, many of the levels will feel quite similar to one another. Add to this the fact that you’re going to die a lot and will subsequently restart your runs from scratch, a feeling of ‘been there, done that’ creeps in a little sooner than we’d like.

Thankfully, the actual gameplay is pretty solid for the most part. It plays a lot like Hotline Miami (shocker) in that you move with one stick, aim with the other, and fire with ‘ZR’. You can drop and pick up weapons as required with ‘R’, and the game recommends you do this often to ensure you’ve got a constant supply of ammo.

The key feature here, however, is that with a quick tap of ‘ZL’, you can slow down time temporarily. This achieves two things: the first is that it makes aiming much easier, and the second is that it allows you to dodge incoming bullets, Matrix-style. The effect doesn’t last particularly long, so you need to ensure it’s being used in the most efficient way possible to avoid being overwhelmed when the effect expires.

In addition to the core gameplay, you can upgrade your abilities by gathering up coins and spending them at the bar. You’re offered a choice of three or four beverages with unique abilities, such as more bullets, a bigger blast radius for grenades, and more. One of the most interesting options was the ability to trigger a quick slot machine whenever you kill enemies in bullet time, which has a chance of gifting you with rewards on the fly.

All in all, Oxto is a solid recommendation if you’re a fan of Hotline Miami and are after something to scratch a similar itch. Ultimately, its roguelike structure hinders the experience rather than enhances it, but if all you want to do is shoot a few bad guys, then you can’t really go wrong.