Gori: Cuddly Carnage PC review – The cat’s in the bag (and the bag’s in the river)

There are few things that could potentially win me over faster than a combination 3D platformer and spectacle fighter, so it should go without saying that I’ve been itching to play Gori: Cuddly Carnage since I first heard of its existence. The premise is simple – you’re a toy cat that’s actually more of an android that’s trying to fight back against a skinned bear in a box that’s heading up an army of zombie unicorn toys that have wiped out the human race. Wait, did I say “simple?” Let me start over.

The premise is not that simple. I still have questions about the finer details. Gori and the hundreds of unicorns he violently slaughters are toys, but they also have thoughts and wills. At one point we’re shown that they can be injected with medicine and there’s clearly a virus running rampant that’s causing the unicorns to be this way, so they’re all clearly creatures and not just toys. I suppose they’re referred to as toys when in reality they’re closer to androids. None of this is important, it just irks me somewhat. While there is a fair amount of story in Gori: Cuddly Carnage (via both in-engine and comic book-style,) we’re clearly not meant to ponder these parts. Or are we?! (No.)

When all was said and done, I found myself somewhat emotionally moved by the narrative, which takes a sadder turn toward the end. It surprised me due to all the constant swearing and dismemberment. Early on, all of the language starts to grate. I swear a lot personally, but Gori: Cuddly Carnage thinks that swearing is hilarious just by itself. Hearing a talking hoverboard curse constantly is amusing at first, but it gets a little old after a couple of hours. Although you can choose to leave him censored if you want. You uncensor him by buying an upgrade, which I thought was a fun idea.

Gori: Cuddly Carnage is broken up into eight levels, although the final one is really just a 10+ minute final boss battle and not much else, so there are really only seven. Each of these seven has three key pieces to find that will unlock a short combo challenge stage and a new outfit for Gori to wear. You can pick Gori’s fur colour and pattern too, as well as his eye colour. I spent the majority of the game with him as a Calico, even though Calicos are almost always female and Gori isn’t. Again, that doesn’t matter. Can we focus here?! You need to collect all the keys and all the combo challenges to unlock the game’s true ending.

As I mentioned in the first paragraph, Gori: Cuddly Carnage is a combination between a platformer and spectacle fighter. Gori rides a hoverboard that can ride specific walls and grind rails, plus it has blades that it can unfurl at any time for slicing and dicing. Why does a toy have blades on it? Good question! The hoverboard controls decently, but I found it to be floatier than I wanted. Granted, a hoverboard needs to be a certain amount of floaty, but I thought this was too much, as movement just feels weightless and less satisfying than I feel it could have been. However, platforming around is easy enough and the controls are responsive.

Combat-wise, you have weak and strong hoverboard attacks, as well as stronger abilities that use fuel to strengthen these. Gori also has a shield and a ranged attack. The ranged attack and the fuelled version of his strong attack can slow down time too. Slamming the ground with the latter will also knock weaker enemies airborne for easy pickings. No doubt inspired by Doom, enemies that have been dazed (and larger enemies who have had their health reduced to half) are susceptible to finishers that will refill some of Gori’s health and fuel.

The finishers here are brutal and tend to feature decapitations, eviscerations, and more. This is an incredibly violent game, but it’s so cartoony that it’s hard to take much of this violence seriously. The finishers do get old fairly quickly, though, and it doesn’t help that Gori doesn’t get new weapons or anything of the sort beyond his ranged attack. The game’s enemies are somewhat varied, but you’ll be fighting the fodder-esque unicorns nearly constantly, which can feel somewhat limited. However, there is a bit of a skill ceiling here, with the focus being on maintaining combos for long stretches.

Doing so is quite satisfying to pull off, so the combat did grow on me over time. The game’s seven main stages are all also decently varied. As for the game’s presentation, it is striking, with some really excellent graphics and areas with plenty of character. Everything also ran incredibly well for me on PC, as I hit 120 fps with ease most of the time with a 3090 and 5700x at 1440p. The devs did a really terrific job optimising this, especially considering how hectic gameplay gets most of the time.

Gori: Cuddly Carnage is an amusing time, although I do wish it offered more. It might last five-to-seven hours, depending, but I really would have liked it to be more fleshed out. More weapons, more enemies, more stages. The game very much feels like an action game circa the late 00’s, although it looks quite modern. I felt like I was playing a spiritual successor to Lollipop Chainsaw much of the time, so if you enjoyed that game, then you’ll probably like this one. It ends with a teaser for a sequel, so perhaps we’ll see Gori reach his full potential next time.

Check out our previous review:

Biogun PC review – Dogsmosis Jones |