Loopmancer wastes no time throwing you into the world of cool guy detective Xiang Zixu who wields both a primary weapon—which there are several to choose from initially—as well as a pistol. You can immediately feel the precision in combat as you switch between beating down an enemy with a sword or pipe and then ending their remainder of health with a pistol to avoid a last-minute grenade or attack they might have. Loopmancer doesn’t hold back with testing your 2D reflexes as not dodging at the right time or letting too many enemies surround you will mean you’ll face a rather quick death. Even after dying numerous times during the demo, Loopmancer’s gameplay was the star of the show as it reminded us of the retro feeling of games like Bionic Commando with the nuance of newer titles like Katana Zero. We can’t wait to experience everything Loopmancer has to offer in the full release!

One of the main gimmicks behind Loopmancer—and what makes the title make sense—is that Xiang Zixu has a strange power where death allows him to return to the start of the day but with his memories intact. However, don’t think that makes the next run easier as areas can change with each death and the choices made upon death can also lead to one of several endings. We didn’t get to experience this much but we can’t wait to see how many endings the game will have and what choices will affect what in the final product.

Being a demo, we always anticipate there will be various bugs and glitches with a game but Loopmancer’s demo has quite a fair amount of them. We had the game crash several times, saw weird double images during cutscenes, and noticed a lot of screen tearing reminiscent of the PS2 gaming era. Again, this is a demo so we are sure these can be ironed out in the final product but we have played many games made by small indie Chinese developers that have had their fair share of graphical/gameplay issues. We hope Loopmancer looks a lot better in the final product which is slated for a 2022 release window.

Loopmancer’s story—while intriguing—equally made us laugh at the wrong reasons while playing the demo. From the goofy actions of various character introductions to the somewhat comical stereotypes we noticed, Loopmancer’s demo didn’t leave us expecting this tale to be the next big sci-fi tale. That being said, for those who love that old 80s story vibe with a mixture of corny dialogue and over-the-top violence, you may dig this Loopmancer narrative. We are right now on the edge with the story but we do want to see more of it and that should say something!