Wanted: Dead Reviews
If you're out for some janky, old-school action that doesn't take itself seriously in the least, there's a good chance you're in the minority that will very much enjoy Wanted: Dead. But at the same time, I imagine a lot of people would bounce off this somewhat scuffed throwback pretty hard.
Wanted: Dead is a mess of a game with hints of excellence strewn about. I wanted to love it a lot more than I did. Instead the game kept making me frustrated at every turn. There have been a million examples of how to make a challenging game without making it frustrating. Wanted: Dead is the epitome of the latter. It simply uses lazy tropes instead of clever game play to create its difficulty. The end result is a game that has some great ideas, but will not interest most players. I expect most to quit before finishing the first boss.
Wanted: Dead is, at its worst, a frustratingly bad action game, but in its inexplicable presentation, nonsensical storytelling, and baffling character dialogue, it's difficult to completely dismiss. There's undeniable fun to be had here in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way, and that might even be enough for the game to secure cult status somewhere down the line. But for now, you'll need to slog through some of the most jank combat in full-price gaming to squeeze enjoyment out of the experience. Wanted: Dead is a truly fascinating mess.
It's without a doubt that Wanted: Dead is oozing with style and glamor thanks to its immaculate art direction and addictive hybrid combat system. The cherries on top are the included shmup, claw machine, and karaoke minigames that simply add more drip to the overall experience.We don't get enough games like these nowadays and I'm all for it. Unfortunately, there's just a ton of technical performance issues at launch that need to be addressed immediately.
If you can buy into what Wanted: Dead is trying to sell, you'll have a good time. Just be ready for fragmented chunks of story, random voice work quality, and quirky concepts. Gameplay can win the day with its gorey, visceral delivery. Just be ready for an over-the-top game that takes itself seriously.
Wanted Dead is a hard game to recommend: it is truly bad in most areas, but it also has the opportunity to click with you depending on your tolerance for jank and of old-school character action games. If you really need a dose of nostalgia, or you love movies like The Room, Wanted Dead could be a hit.
Evaluating Wanted: Dead means coming to terms with the past of the action genre. We repeat: we had a lot of fun during the most agitated moments, fighting against some of the most peculiar bosses, or noticing the constant references to pop, cyberpunk and the history of video games of the 2000s. Unfortunately, however, the weight of technical inaccuracies and the inconsistency of the plot, the slowness of the interludes between an explosion of violence and the next, are evidently out of tune notes and condition the charm of an experience that in any case is able to entertain the most irrediculable fans of the action.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Although it is from the creators of Ninja Gaiden, Wanted: Dead still has a good way to go to become one. Good ideas and an interesting action design lost due to technical problems and poorly calibrated difficulty.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
At the start of Wanted: Dead, players are given the chance to enter a training simulator that walks them through the basic functionality of combat against holographic foes. It’s revealing when one of the levels in the game is set inside the drab and boxy corridors of that simulator. Apart from your foes now being flesh and blood, there’s functionally no difference in killing them. But, then, nearly every level of Wanted: Dead is practically the same, and no amount of stolen memes, nostalgic riffs, and non sequiturs can hide that depressing fact.
Wanted: Dead is going to annoy a lot of players. It’s also going to please plenty more. Soleil has made a game that leans heavily into its PS2-era inspirations, and that includes an unforgiving difficulty level. Without any real way to make things easier, some players may never see the ending of an otherwise enjoyable campaign, outside of watching a streamer perhaps. For those who can manage to hone their skills, however, the time put into Wanted: Dead will be worth it because this slasher-shooter offers so much visceral joy when things go your way that it makes all the painful death worth it.
Wanted: Dead tries to rekindle that flame of passion for gaming’s earliest titles, and while it might resonate with some who unconditionally loved this era of gaming, the final product is very unsatisfying and a reminder of why going back in time is a double-edged sword.
On paper, Wanted: Dead has everything you could possibly want from an action game, but it’s mired in poor execution, ropey presentation, and more than a few unusual design choices. Wanted? We’re not so sure.
I mentioned at the start that I could not tell if Wanted: Dead was a deliberate execution or something that went wrong during development.
Wanted: Dead may be delightfully weird, but it's held back by extremely inconsistent combat, a nonsense story, and an all around lack of any direction.
Wanted: Dead is a punishingly-difficult bloodbath that's a joy to play.
Despite not living up to the character action games it clearly draws inspiration from, Wanted: Dead is a competent action game in its own right.
Wanted: Dead has a charm and sense of humor that is rarely found in modern games, and it backs that up with an amazing combat system that only gets better the more you play.
With Wanted: Dead, Soleil fails to accomplish its mission to make a good comeback for hardcore action games like Ninja Gaiden: this game seems blocked in the PS2 era.
Review in Italian | Read full review
If you are up for a challenge Wanted: Dead can be a fun experience, but for those who don’t like dying or having to learn perfect timing, it can be rather frustrating. The game’s shift in graphics between mini-games, gameplay, and cutscenes can be a bit much for those looking for a uniform experience. Soleil Ltd. tries to make Wanted: Dead the experience that Ninja Gaiden was, but misses the mark. Combat can be fun if you don’t get frustrated at a challenge, otherwise, if you are looking to just experience the story, Neko-chan mode is the way to go.
If you’re not put off by its grave challenge that all too often feels unfair and its general rough-around-the-edges nature, you might have a good time with Wanted: Dead. Most, though, are likely to become disheartened and infuriated by it. It tries to do something new with the genre and we applaud it for that, but the execution isn’t quite there. We love its characters and its quirkiness, and even its mechanics, but they’re in a game that at the moment only sporadically feels fun to play. Hopefully Soleil can make some post-launch changes that point it further in the right direction.