Milanoir
Nintnedo Switch

Reviewed by Brett

Publisher – Good Shepard Entertainment
Developer – Italo Games
Music – DPStudious (Davide Pensato and Luigi Di Guida)
Category – Action
Release Date – May 31 , 2018

Incognito in Italia and Murder in Milan

Milanoir is an retro action game inspired by 70’s Italian pulp crime movies.

You are Piero, an assassin and hired gun for an Italian crime boss. After a Stint in prison you get back to work and try to track down the person who snitched on you. Through high octane car chases and gunfights, you shoot and sneak your way through Milan chasing leads and outrunning rival gang members out for your blood. The Rival gangs want you dead and you have to use your wits and your guns to survive.

Good thing your a professional, Perhaps the best and luckiest there ever was.

Gamplay in Milanoir is pretty straightforward. Your moving with the left stick, aiming with the right and shooting with a trigger. There are not a whole lot of controls besides that, with the other triggers you can roll and hop over obstacles. Occasionally you will get a throwable object such as a Molotov cocktail that can be thrown with Y. Besides the fact that i believe the game was developed for PC in mind and the aiming seems to be tuned to work best with a mouse, everything in Milanoir controls wonderfully and you get used to the aiming after a time.

Milanoir is packed with action. Every single gunfight may impose a challenge but every one is fun to play through. Not many weapons are available but hey, you don’t really need many and your a skilled assassin so you can get the job done with pistols sub machine guns and a one shot kill revolver. The revolver is a special case, you will find them randomly and when you pick it it up you get six shots to kill anyone around. No reloads. Every shot from the revolver fills the screen with a brilliant color which gives it even more of that 70’s flair. At fist it was slightly jarring but i very soon welcomed this brilliant artistic touch.

Vehicle chases in Milanoir are fast and dangerous. Minus one unique boat chase all chases take place on crowded streets full of cars and obstructions. Sometimes on a scooter and sometimes in cars. You will be either chasing or getting chased weaving through traffic and shooting enemy vehicles of the road. All but one of these chases i found to be fun and frustration free firefights.

There are a multitude of boss fights in Milanoir. All boss fights are fairly challenging encounters that will test your aim and skill. You will be going up against rival gang members and those who have wronged you and all of them will come at you with a heated fury. Each and every boss fight was hard, taking many attempts to complete but all felt very rewarding when finally conquered. Every fight was also pretty unique, from bringing down an attack helicopter with grenades to a tense shootout in a dark church, there was always a nice variety to each encounter and i found myself looking forward to getting to the next challenge.

The pixel artwork on display is Milanoir is simply amazing. Oddly enough i got a very Lupin the Third vibe from both characters and settings, albeit with a bit darker tone. The detail in everything had me surveying each area, taking in all the minutia of each local, sometimes getting me killed in the process. I really do not know if i have ever seen pixel art quite like this. As a big fan of the medium i know that it takes massive skill and artistry to animate a game in this style and i have the give a hand to the team for making such a wonderfully detailed game.

Not only does it look great but sounds fantastic as well. Very fitting to the theme of the game the score is filled with tracks that perfectly evoke 70’s pulp cinema, keeping action intense and slow sections moody and tense.

The score by DPStudious (Davide Pensato and Luigi Di Guida) tie everything together perfectly.

Another Soundtrack i would love to add to my vinyl collection. Fingers crossed.

Verdict

Milanoir is a fantastic action game that keeps energy high and tension higher. Every level is a fight for your life and you will lose it frequently. It’s a very tough game and aside from an occasion or two mostly fair, i did find one or two instances where i felt like i could do nothing better and was still getting owned. The art, style, sound and substance of Milanoir is absolutely outstanding. I will most likely hold it high regards for a very long time to come. If you like action games and are up for a challenge you need to own this game. If you like action games but suck at them buy it anyway and take in as much of this fantastic game as you can before you get your ass handed to you.

TL;DR