Milanoir Reviews
If Milanoir were a Tarantino film, it would be Death Proof; a self-indulgent exercise in tedium that would make most people who experience it want their money back.
Aggressively unpleasant and a chore to play, Milanoir is a bloody dud of a tale. A slick visual style is the only positive to take away from this lousy slog of a game.
Milanoir may look the part, but it certainly doesn't play like it thanks to finicky controls and a cheap difficulty.
Milanoir captures the essence of 70's gangster films well, but it's all style and no substance. The writing is juvenile, the difficulty ramp is ridiculous, and the persistent glitches sour the whole experience. If you're someone who seeks accomplishment in conquering an absolutely brutal challenge, you might find some enjoyment here. Otherwise, there isn't a whole lot else to get out of this game.
Wasted potential. An action game where the most important parts are flawed. It's a shame, because the atmosphere of Milan and gangster movies are delicious like Italian spaghetti sauce.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Milanoir is a twin stick shooter that offers a nice atmosphere, but it suffers from gameplay and difficulty issues that make him very frustrating.
Review in French | Read full review
A great concept that summarily misfires on all cylinders, Milanoir is an admittedly stylish retro shooter that is simply too frustrating and poorly designed to recommend.
Milanoir takes an appealing aesthetic with a promising setup and turns it into a dutiful slog without much of a payout. It's basic, it's petty, and it's laughably crude. It is a noir title that really doesn't have a whole lot to say.
For fans of cult-classic crime cinema, there are enough fun sequences sprinkled throughout to get a kick out of. However, Milanoir doesn’t provide enough polish in its gameplay to really let these moments shine through.
An excellent game filled with all the things to love about video games. Cool characters, great music, sweet story, and graphics that fit the game perfectly. It’s just too bad that the difficulty spike absolutely killed the experience for me. I don’t rage quit very many games, but when I do… a controller usually dies a horrifying and disturbing death. Don’t worry. No controllers were harmed in the process of this review.
Despite hitting a lot of the same notes, Milanoir is not the Hotline Miami successor many were expecting. The game has a lot of style, enough for its 6-8 hour campaign to keep you engaged, but it is hidden underneath a layer of extreme frustration brought to light by its technical issues and extreme difficulty curve.
To be sure, some of this is my own incompetence - failing to notice the street signs that can be used to ricochet bullets. But much of it is the fault of the game - the eight-person ricochet off stop signs only hitting two of eight foes in a scene designed explicitly to tutorial that very feature. For that reason alone, I cannot recommend Milanoir. If you want to experience the story of a sadistic killer who's plans have gone bust, you're better off watching one of the game's inspirations, the 1973 film Almost Human. Just know it, and Milanoir, are not for the faint of heart.
Milanoir provides pleasure in its own roundabout, corny, lighthearted way. Sure, its combat is very obtuse, awkward, and confounding. I became emotionally detached from Piero as his dense, cocky attitude drained my soul. But with a few neat mechanics and a well-rendered art style, this whimsical crime-film imitation flatters some of its ancestors and lightly entertains with the same campy charm.
While Milanoir offers up something very different on Switch, and manages to avoid repeating itself too much, the overall unevenness of the experience can be hard not to be frustrated by. Some sequences play well, and will give you some push back, but others can prove to be maddening and seem to only get cleared through an element of luck on top of your skills. If you’re determined to you’ll get through it but for mere casual fans without a patch it will probably aggravate more than entertain.
Hardboiled and undercooked, the story and tone of Milanoir are dead on target, but the shooting doesn't quite hold up against the tough difficulty.
If you're up for a challenging game, this might be right up your alley. However, if you're the type of gamer who prefers a more casual flow to a game, then don't bother – you'll just end up frustrated with controller holes in your wall.
Milanoir has the potential to be a grat game on the Nintendo Switch, but the aiming mechanics aren't fit for the system, and consistently get in the way. Its revenge plot is also just way to dark and without any redemptive qualities.
Milanoir is a amalgam of 1970's exploitation cinema and 1980's video games that captures all the grit and violence of the former and the difficulty and frustration of the latter. The story is well written and the game flows between different action sequences and cinematic breaks that keep both gameplay and the story fresh. There are some issues with hit detection and death animations that will frustrate you at times, but the game rewards you for getting through each sequence and makes it worth the effort.
So all things considered, I had a pretty great experience with his game. The gameplay can get somewhat repetitive and there are some things here and there which can play to Milanoir’s strengths… But also it’s weaknesses. The fun characters of Milanoir and their interactions with each other, the fun and dumb world established in this game, and the environments explored is what made it for me.
Milanoir is not the longest game, but that breakneck pacing is so high octane that it can become draining. Unfortunately, it's not a game that's easy to pick up and put down at will, because it's a little confusing as to when it's actually saving the action.