Glum Early Access Review

When the game is in early access, we're usually more than ready to forgive its shortcomings, even if they are so big and so annoying that the overall gaming experience can be completely ruined by them.

At the end of the day, early access is there to give us glimpses of what the specific game is capable of and what we can expect once the full version finally comes.

Glum will hit you directly in the guts from the first encounter with the game, or more precisely, it will kick you in the butt because in this game, kicking is everything.

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Glum

Glum is a game about a very ugly protagonist, who is unfortunately the last hope for saving the kingdom, which is in dire need. In the shortage of real heroes, an ugly anti-hero must suffice, but soon, he will prove everyone wrong once his kicking abilities come forth.

Glum is a first-person, fast-paced action game in which you'll kick your opponents, and your main weapon won't be some fancy swords, axes, or firearms, no. You'll kick around everything with your shiny boots. The better the boots, the more powerful your kicks will be.

Kicking won't only be the mechanic for fighting opponents; you'll kick stuff to hit some remote objects, kick open the doors, and even kick enemies with boots that you launch from your foot and that magically return to you.

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Glum

The ideas this game has are as entertaining and original as they're crazy and weird, but I assure you, this game, in its early access, with all its evident flaws, is one of a kind, and I'm sure, once the final version is out, it will win many hearts.

Apart from being very unique, the gameplay is very fast-paced, which makes fighting encounters very fluid and adrenaline-fuelled. In terms of pace, Glum reminded me a lot of Doom games, where the action takes the wheel and everything else moves to the back seat.

Of course, not all is rainbows and butterflies in Glum because this game has some serious technical issues, but those can be put on the early access tab. You'll find a lot of glitches and bugs, and even the developers are very well aware of this, even making jokes about them at the welcome screen.

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Glum

Some of those bugs are very bad; some are even cute and funny, but one bug made my game almost unplayable, unfortunately. Once I got access to the game, I played a huge chunk of it—perhaps more than two hours. After ending the session, the game updated, and all my progress was lost.

I started the game anew, only to witness the same thing happening again, only this time, without the update. After the latest update, this issue seems to be fixed, or at least I hope it is, but this significantly slowed my progress in the game.

In this state, the game is really fun, but it is a bug fest too, so if you want to play it like this, be prepared for those issues, or at least consider yourself warned.

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Glum

Regarding the visual presentation, I cannot say that Glum is the prettiest game out there, not even close to the pretty ones, but like everything else, the visuals have their charm. The overall design is semi-cartoonish, and it reminds me a lot of Dishonored games.

The character design is hilarious too and fully complements the overall unserious tone of the game. Do not expect groundbreaking graphics here, not even as good as the average game nowadays, but as I said earlier, the visuals are very charming, creating a very unique and atmospheric experience.

The sound presentation feels incomplete, as if the developers didn't have enough time to deal with this aspect as much as with everything else. The main character's voice is very strange, and he will talk and give comments just on very rare occasions, while the other conversations are mostly done over speech bubbles.

The sounds of battle cries, jumps, breaking objects, and everything else feel incomplete, too, but I believe this aspect will be taken care of as soon as possible. However, the state of sound presentation, at the moment of writing this review, is not satisfactory, to say the least.

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Glum

Conclusion

Glum is poised to be one of the most original games; once the full, ironed-out version hits the shelves, that can be stated with a huge degree of certainty. However, this early access version is showing just small glimpses of its true potential.

This, most certainly, won't be a game with a beautiful graphic presentation that will win you over with its beauty, but instead, it will aim to deliver very fun gameplay, full of weird encounters, a lot of humour, and the main character that dodges all the stereotypes known to us.