OTXO has been sitting in my Steam library, unloved and unplayed, since I picked it up last year. When, last month, I discovered that the game is being ported to consoles, it was the nudge that I needed to boot up the game. I’m damn glad that I did.
OTXO – pronounced “oh-cho” – is a top-down twin-stick shooter by Lateralis Heavy Industries about a man who wakes up on a beach outside a strange hotel wearing a cursed mask. Inside this mansion is his/your loved one, whoever that is, and they’re trapped somewhere and awaiting rescue. Cue a series of bloodthirsty rampages through a heavily armed fortress, where reactions are tested and danger lurks around every corner.
A successor to Hotline Miami?
The comparisons to Hotline Miami – the twisted twin-stick masterpiece by Dennaton Games – are completely reasonable. There are several things that the games have in common, including the overall feel of the gunplay and the same uneasy atmosphere, and it quickly becomes clear that this monochromatic homage is cut from the same cloth.
The similarities centre around the top-down perspective and the door-kicking, weapon-swapping, gun-firing combat. However, there are also several things the make OTXO feel like its own game.
The main reason I’m writing about OTXO here is the roguelite portion of the game, which manifests itself as a weird David Lynch-esque hotel where you can never check out. After each death you wake up on the same beach outside the same set of doors, talk about weapons with the same nun, and get refreshing beverages from the same barkeep. Hotline Miami was all weird phone calls and animal heads, whereas this world has a more supernatural twist.
Focus, dodge, fire, repeat
OTXO is all about pulsating combat encounters with armed guards and angry lizards. Each level consists of a top-down floorplan, with each room therein containing a selection of enemies on patrol. If one is near the entrance you can take them down as you kick open the door, and anyone else inside will soon feel the sting of your arrival.
The action is built around a “focus” mechanic where time slows and you get an advantage over your enemies. Side-stepping bullets and taking down your opponent like John Wick reincarnate is absolutely as cool as it sounds. Each burst of focus is on a timer, so it’s important to work quickly, but with precision and enough bullets, you can make short work of a whole room of guards. What’s more, doing so quickly boosts your multiplier and gives you more money to spend at the bar.
You’ll need to swap weapons regularly in order to stay dangerous, because bullets are in short supply. This ensures that you get to see the entirety of OTXO’s arsenal as you’re constantly grabbing up new guns from fallen enemies once you’ve cleared a room of enemies and spent most of your bullets; it’s always better to go into your next battle with a fresh gun and a full magazine.
Getting a round in at the bar
In between stages you’ll return to the same hotel bar, and if you’ve got the money, you can buy drinks that aid you during your current attempt. These drinks are quite expensive but in return for your coin you get cool new abilities. These game-changing powers are varied enough to incentivise a shift in approach by giving you longer in focus or causing random enemy bodies to explode, for example.
As you progress and make more money, you might want to invest in new abilities from another acquaintance in the hotel bar. Once you’ve spent money to unlock new abilities, the associated drinks will then appear behind the bar in future runs. It’s an intriguing approach to roguish progression, but I never seemed to have enough money to splash out on the best drinks/abilities, and this enforced scarcity feeds into the overall difficulty.
In fact, OTXO is a very challenging game and I’ve yet to complete it, despite my best attempts. In between the different stages are strange boss battles that mix things up, although at least in these encounters you have infinite ammo. Even the standard floors are a solid challenge, and it’s a good thing that your health bar replenishes after each one is completed.
Overall, I think OTXO is a highly enjoyable action-roguelite that is worthy of the comparisons to Hotline Miami. The distinctive and enigmatic audio-visual style is grim and relentless, yet this twin-stick shooter still feels uniquely intriguing thanks to the roguish wrapper that holds everything together.
