KIBORG Review Summary

Fun and satisfying beat-em-up with solid combat, but plagued by bugs, frustrating difficulty, and poor co-op.

Fun and enjoyable gameplay: Players describe the game as legitimately fun and still fun, with some finding it sometimes fun and enjoying it at the start. Overall, the gameplay provides positive entertainment value.

Solid core combat concept: The concept combines Arkham-style free-flow combat with roguelite elements, offering brilliant gameplay mechanics and creative action with combo inputs. The core gameplay has potential to be great.

Beat-em-up gameplay simple yet satisfying: The beat-em-up gameplay is described as simple but satisfying, with excellent beat-em-up mechanics if not viewed strictly as a roguelike. The melee combat is good, and the frenetic action appeals to many.

Implant system adds variety: The sources and implants system is well done, and the implant system makes each run different by providing varying upgrades and set bonuses that provide satisfying power when complete.

Satisfying gore and farming: Endless gore combat can be satisfying for farming levels, and the game is a fun roguelike despite slight jankiness. The action is frenetic and chaotic, especially in co-op.

Bugs and crashes prevalent: Frequent bugs, crashes, and game-breaking glitches are reported across many reviews, including softlocks, crashes on startup, and issues with DLC preventing the game from launching.

Frustrating difficulty balance: Difficulty is poorly balanced, with unfair enemy spawns, one-shot deaths, and lack of healing, making the game overly punishing and grindy.

Unsatisfying combat mechanics: Combat is criticized for clunky controls, unresponsive inputs, poor hitboxes, and lack of impact, making it unenjoyable.

Poor co-op implementation: Co-op mode is criticized for requiring restart to enable, lacking online support, having bugs, and poor implementation like missing mechanics and control issues.

Boring and repetitive gameplay: Gameplay is described as monotonous, repetitive, and lacking variety in weapons, enemies, and locations, leading to quick boredom.

Roguelike and Roguelite Structure: Players frequently describe the game as a roguelike or roguelite with random generation, permanent upgrades, and grinding for resources. This core structure is mentioned across multiple clusters.

Co-op and Multiplayer Modes: Feedback highlights the availability of co-op and local split-screen multiplayer. However, one cluster notes bugs in cooperative mode compared to singleplayer.

Boss Fights: Boss fights are a prominent feature, with mentions of specific bosses like Novak and abilities such as regeneration, multiplication, and tornado attacks.

Weapon Modifications and Floors: The game features weapon modifications and floor-based progression. Players encounter arenas and rooms with random enemy spawns and boss fights at each stage.

Implant and Upgrade Systems: An implant system (sources, prosthetics, synergies) and augments with varying power levels provide build customization. This includes upgrades for abilities and stats.

Game fails to launch after update: The game fails to start or becomes a background process after an update. DLC or the update itself causes launch failures, with crashes on startup being common.

Stuttering during gameplay: The game suffers from frequent stutter when turning the camera, despite high FPS. Vsync doesn't help, and stutters occur even with upscaling enabled. Fullscreen and borderless modes are both affected.

Framerate drops with large enemy groups: Significant slowdowns and frame drops occur when large groups of enemies spawn, indicating poor handling of on-screen entity counts.

Bugs and incomplete feel: Players are not recommending the game in its current state due to bugs, jank, and an incomplete feel. Issues with balance and general instability are frequently mentioned.

Missing features and co-op: Several players report missing expected features, particularly online co-op and split-screen co-op. This leads to refund requests and negative recommendations.

Hope for future fixes: Several players indicate they will wait for bugs and performance issues to be fixed before playing again or changing their review.

Performance concerns: Reviews mention that if performance issues are fixed, they would change their recommendation. Startup failures and poor performance are noted.

Story and gameplay mismatch: Some players warn that the game lacks a story campaign and is not suitable for those seeking fast-paced action or endless gore combat.

Community fair range: $10.00 - $20.00.

Game completion: 15.0h.

Session length: 7.0h.

KIBORG has a slow, frustrating opening due to lack of health regen, armor, and punishing early mechanics, but becomes highly engaging once meta progression and implant set synergies are unlocked, typically after a few runs.

Friction: No health regen or armor in early game; Negative mutations that harm the player; Slow opening with limited systems; Repetitive stage design; No online co-op, only local split-screen with issues; Bugs and performance problems.

Unlock drivers: Meta progression tree with new systems; Implant set synergies and secondary stats; High build variety and character customization; Gradual unlocking of gameplay mechanics.

Action Combat Enthusiast: Aggressive, focusing on melee combos and power fantasy, often comparing to other iconic action games. Motivation: Visceral combat and satisfying power fantasy. Stance: buy.

Build-Crafter: Methodical, experimenting with implant and mutation synergies, planning runs for optimized builds. Motivation: Deep customization and build variety. Stance: buy.

Casual Time-Waster: Short sessions, pick-up-and-play, not focused on deep optimization or story. Motivation: Stress relief and casual fun. Stance: sale.

Players with less than 8GB VRAM on Windows report the game is poorly optimized.

Windows <8GB VRAM: negative. Users with less than 8GB VRAM on Windows report the game is not optimized at all.

Steam Deck: The game generally runs well on Steam Deck with good performance, but requires manual tweaking (switching to DirectX to avoid Vulkan crashes), suffers from slower loading on SD cards, and has rare but serious issues like update-related system freezes or progress loss. Controller support is also lacking despite store recommendations.

Linux and Proton: The game runs well on Linux and Steam Deck via Proton, but the Vulkan renderer causes frequent crashes. Users must switch to DirectX mode (which Proton handles via DXVK) to achieve stable gameplay. Once that tweak is applied, performance is reported as smooth and playable on both desktop Linux and Steam Deck.

Monetization: User reviews show the game offers traditional paid DLC expansions with no microtransactions, gacha, pay-to-win, or currency obfuscation. Players are generally willing to purchase additional content. One technical bug after DLC purchase and one complaint about base content value exist, but neither indicates predatory monetization.