Topic: Mr. Shifty is Good Times

Mr. Shifty is a cel-shaded 2.5D top-down action game with 1-hit deaths, 1-hit kill weapons, and lots of destructible environments and ragdolling for $15. Games media say it's like Hotline Miami, but I haven't played Hotline Miami, so who even knows if it's really like Hotline Miami!

I do know that I played the first 8 levels on Switch in portable mode and had a pretty great time for someone who usually doesn't go for 1-note, gameplay centric indie games. There is a good progression of enemies and new mechanics, but more than anything teleporting around and punching extras from a Rush Hour movie (a 2-hit kill) just feels good.

It isn't amazingly tactical once you get the concept of porting behind walls and punching people in the back and the number of enemies seemed to increase to scale the difficulty, but I don't think it needs to be much more than that with how enjoyable it is. The game has slight frame rate stutters at the end of some of the longer enemy assault rooms — where the continually spawning suits pile up on the floor and glass and wall debris scatters around. However, I think it would be an exaggeration to say that hurts the experience.

I think this game is perhaps the perfect experience for the Switch's core conceit, and I already feel like I got my money's worth. If you decide to take the $15 plunge let me know what you think — I would definitely encourage it if you're in the market for games.

This game immediately caught my attention, it really looks like a lot of fun. But since I'm still playing Zelda I'm kinda waiting for some reviews first. But I'm glad to hear it's good because again it looks really cool.

It seems really interesting to me, and even a lot of fun, but sometimes it looks like it can really hurt my head because of how much mess there is on screen. And the price is a little bit high to me too. Maybe at some price drop

Yeah im sure ill play it some time. Only horrible reviews could stop me. Seems fun.

Its parallels to Hotline Miami are, at best, skin deep--the game that 'inspired' it is clearly the better one, alas, and has more variety, better storytelling (if that's your thing), and a great deal more depth.

(I would also wait for a price drop--while quibbling over $5 is a little crazy, it is a $10, tops, game, especially with the obnoxious performance issues.)

Any framerate issues? I've been hearing talk that it stutters a bit and a patch is incoming.

@Ryu_Niiyama
Kotaku review says it stutters only in the latter stages with lots of enemies on-screen. And yes, the publisher is promising a patch.

Never played a game before that runs below 10 FPS. Awful port

The dev responses to this is... out there to say the least.

http://www.gonintendo.com/stories/278028-mr-shifty-dev-respon...

I'm early on in the game and have noticed some serious issues. And I'm not a stickler for framerate at all. When there are a few (it doesn't even have to be that many) different types of enimies on screen and you try to warp sometimes it slows to a crawl for a second or 2. In a game where speed is key to success this is a huge issue.

I'm teetering on weather or not I have buyer's remorse with this title. A patch would go a long way to make me feel better but right now, using NL's scale, I'd give the game a 6.

Apparently a patch intended to fix performance issues in the Switch version of this game is live.

@Masurao I agree, it's just slow down sometimes. The frame rate doesn't blind you to the action on screen or really harm the visual style in any meaningful way. Fixating on frame rate is just a way to ignore how fun this game is.