Serial Cleaners Reviews
Serial Cleaners' chance to grow brighter and bolder with neo-noir narratives, instead sees itself bogged down in run-of-the-mill nihilism that even affects the gameplay.
Serial Cleaners' main problem is that it's kind of a wasted opportunity. There's room for a game like this on the market, and it's stylishly presented enough that it could easily garner an audience of obsessive stealth-loving cleaners. It just doesn't achieve the necessary tension to make it a compelling stealth game and its mechanics are too open to abuse to reward careful play and smart decisions. As a result, the potential thrill that it could have been is lost.
While Serial Cleaners isn’t without its issues, this macabre mop-’em-up has its moments, but only the most patient custodians of carnage will likely want to see it through to the end. The writing is fantastic and the characters all bring something new and exciting to the table with their various talents. If you enjoyed the original game and can look beyond the grime and viscera that occasionally gunk up the experience, you might just find Serial Cleaners to be a dirty job worth undertaking. It’s not much, but it’s honest work.
Serial Cleaners comes with a new style and attitude, taking inspiration from some of the great crime films of the 80s and 90s to tell a four-sided tale. It's an enjoyable return for the original game's quirky take on crime scene cleaning, but only takes a few small steps forward, leaving the limits of its stealth-action gameplay evident to see.
As an avid fan of stealth games, I wanted Serial Cleaners to be much more than simply a prettier and more diverse version of the first game with a cool storyline.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Serial Cleaners is a stealth action game in isometric view with an incomparable mix of blood, irony and great dialogues
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Serial Cleaners unfortunately does not strike like its predecessor: the adventures of Mr. Bob and his company of Cleaners attract the player more with a deep story and narrative branches to be discovered, all with a pleasant jazz accompaniment and a peculiar aesthetic rendering but with fluctuating effectiveness.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The varied set pieces really capture the grimy, gritty nature of the crime that permeated film and TV during the late 90s with a surprising level of detail.
In this unusual take to stealth action, the players will have to clean up crime scenes after the gruesome actions occur but before the law can catch them. With its marvelous art style and sountrack, and an accessible and fun experience, Serial Cleaners' biggest flaws are its rather easy difficulty for experienced players and repetitiveness that settles in after a couple of hours, but which can be averted by playing in short sessions.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Serial Cleaners tries to take a leap forward from its predecessor, but manages to barely make a dent: while the graphics and narrative are indeed improved, giving us a colourful and enjoyable 90s-tinged work, the gameplay still has shortcomings.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Serial Cleaners is a unique game, one that asks you to clean up the kinds of messes you'd usually leave behind in some other violent game. It pushes forth a stylish story with compelling characters, wrapped up in a package that some may be understandably disappointed by and others might be surprised (and relaxed) by. With its easy-to-dupe AI, the need to be perfect in your work fades away, and instead a calming, weird sense of comfort lures you in. And in this world, sometimes "weirdly comforting" is all you can ask for in your pastimes.
Serial Cleaners is a fun top-down stealth game that will test your patience and sense of timing. Who would have thought vacuuming the floor would be so fun?
Serial Cleaners, with its intriguing mood, feels like a Tarantino's movie. Unfortunately, it could have done better on AI, because you don't actually feel that something is at stake, when you face dumb enemies that wouldn't even notice a missing corpse.
Review in Italian | Read full review
It's hard to find much fun in Serial Cleaners. Although its gameplay is creative, the actual effect is not gratifying: there is more negative feedback than positive, which constantly consumes players' patience. Although the four protagonists have their characteristics, they have never really completed a mission together, and many plot highlights in the game have been wasted in vain.
Review in Chinese | Read full review
Serial Cleaners has taken the monotonous act of cleaning and spun it on its head by placing it in a gritty criminal world with characters that are eccentric and passionate about getting the job done. Though the gameplay can be repetitive and the dialogue may make you wince, the location art and the special abilities of each character makes up for the lack of "action" in this "action crime" game. Instead, the elements of dead bodies, shining pools of blood, and the game's dark colour palette brings the excitement as you clean up the carnage other games would usually have you create.
As a stealth-action experience, Serial Cleaners is most certainly a breath of fresh air, continuing to build on the foundations set by the series’ first outing in 2017. Between the added uniqueness of the rest of the crew, the diverse and interesting level designs, the non-linear story with freedom of choice, and just good old cleaning action to be had, Serial Cleaners is everything you would want in a sequel; just be wary that some polishing is still needed for the perfect finish.
Although its stealth systems can feel a little too forgiving and easy to work around, Serial Cleaners’ grungey story is still one well-worth going through thanks to its likeable cast, sense of style, varied levels, and satisfying core mechanics that manage to stay fresh throughout the adventure.
Showing a different approach from the existing action games, Serial Cleaners is a fun game filled with artistic visuals seem to be inspired by postmodernism and street art. However, the slow tempo compared to previous work and dumb Police AI are reducing the tension of 'infiltration'. Also, can't expect the replayability due to the lack of challenge mode.
Review in Korean | Read full review
Serial Cleners is a decent sequel that inherits the strengths and weaknesses of the first chapter of the series, which does not innovate the stealth game genre even if it offers some interesting gameplay ideas and a rather convincing artistic style. However, its biggest flaw is an artificial intelligence that does not propose a sufficiently valid challenge.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Serial Cleaners is a stealth game with a unique concept and an apt visual style, but with not too original gameplay by the standards of the genre. Nevertheless, the excellent presentation makes it a worthy title for all fans of the genre.
Review in Italian | Read full review