"Metal Hellsinger" offers a unique gameplay experience where players shoot and kill hordes of monsters to the rhythm of metal music. Successfully hitting the right beats enhances the damage dealt, adding a rhythmic challenge to the shooter mechanics. The game's concept is engaging, and the music sets a fitting backdrop for the action. The variety of weapons and ultimates, particularly the hounds, adds depth to the gameplay. However, there's room for improvement.

Suggestions for Future Iterations:

Sigils: While Sigils can be useful, I found them to be of limited necessity. Their role could be expanded or better explained to enhance their utility.

New Monsters: Introducing a greater variety of monsters would keep the gameplay fresh and challenging.

Boss Design: The bosses in the game felt underwhelming and too similar. Distinct and unique boss designs, with different sprites and mechanics, would significantly improve the experience.

Weapon Variety: Adding more weapons would give players more options and keep combat interesting.

Difficulty and Levels: The game could benefit from a more balanced difficulty curve or the inclusion of checkpoints, especially if more levels are added.

Co-op Campaign: A local or online co-op campaign mode would be a fantastic addition, allowing players to enjoy the game with friends.

Setting: Setting the next game in Heaven could provide a fresh and intriguing contrast to the current hellish environments.

Overall, "Metal Hellsinger" is an enjoyable game with a solid foundation. With these enhancements, future iterations could elevate the series to new heights.

Metal: Hellsinger delivers well on its promise of blending Doom's demon-blasting FPS gameplay with the action-rhythm hybrid we have in games like Crypt of the Necrodancer. For a first effort it exceeded my expectations, but I think there's a lot of room for this type of game to grow. There's not a lot of depth to the gameplay, which is alright considering the game's short length, but I didn't feel compelled to play more and chase high scores after finishing the story.

In this FPS you match the timing of your shots to the beat of the metal songs playing in the background. The soundtrack is really great across the board, though I found myself preferring the tracks of the first few levels. Regardless, all of them were tempting to headbang to. The thing is they pretty much all seem to have the same rhythm, and with most levels looking very similar visually, the only real distinction between them as far as gameplay is concerned is the later levels feature higher quantities and a greater variety of enemies. Oh and I guess the bosses are...sort of unique. They use roughly the same model. The arena is often what makes the difference with them.

The weapon variety was fine, but I found myself happiest when I was using the first couple weapons the game handed me and each subsequent unlock felt further away from what I enjoyed. I'd like to see weapon types focus less on different effective ranges and more on how they fit into the beats you should be shooting in time with. The shotgun has a really satisfying fire, cock gun, fire, repeat rhythm to it while later ones just mix up how long you wait between shots. Maybe having limited ammo and better enemy variety would force me to switch weapons more like In Doom: Eternal?

This rhythm game does commit the sin of leaning too heavily into its story. Every time you boot up a level, you'll sit through a cutscene made up of lightly animated still frames and a narration playing over them. I couldn't bring myself to care about the plot, but figured I should sit through them regardless. But it doesn't stop there though. The game also has narration throughout each of the levels. More specifically, in the middle of combat, when I'm trying to focus on timing my shots to the music. The choice to have that happen in a rhythm game is a true headscratcher, to be sure. After a couple levels I turned the voice volume to zero and never looked back. The narration wasn't all that great anyway.

I truly hope they revisit this concept because there's lots of ways you could go with the foundation laid by Hellsinger.