PI.EXE

Genre: Action-Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

PI.EXE is an Action-Platformer released in 2022 on PC and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023. In this game, you play an energy sword-wielding mute anthropomorphic personification of a computer program fighting against a malicious computer virus threatening his world. In each of this game’s levels, players must slash through enemies, retrieve a key, and get to that level’s door.

The presentation here is kinda’ a problem. The game’s glowy neon, vaguely Tron-like visuals are pretty low-res, and everything in the game seems to be overlaid with a “glitchy” filter that makes it all look like stuff is occasionally freezing or shuddering. While this is certainly intentional, it seems like it is here in part to hide that the game itself suffers from nasty framerate issues that cause the game to shutter and move unpredictably, something that is not conducive to the sort of fast-paced high-skill Action-Platformer that this game is aiming to be. These visuals are backed by a repetitive techno-style soundtrack that works for the game’s theming, but isn’t memorable or interesting.

The issues with the presentation are not the only problem this game has. However, before getting to my main complaint with the gameplay, I do have to give the game a compliment – when the combat works, when the visuals don’t mess you up and you execute moves as intended, this game’s movement and combat can be really fluid and genuinely fun, zipping from one enemy to the next as you slice through them . If this was the experience that the entire game delivered, this would have been an immensely satisfying Action game.

Unfortunately, this game heavily penalizes the player for making a mistake. If you use you air-dash/attack without bisecting an enemy, not only do you lose your score multiplier, but you lose all further ability to attack or air dash until you recharge, which means either waiting while standing or mashing the ZR button. At best, this means you’ll be slowing down the pace of the game even more as you wait for your charge to reset, but at worst this means that you’ll be trying to zip through a line of enemies but suddenly missing one means that you’ll go to attack the next only to have your attack button doing nothing, causing you to get killed.

This is immensely frustrating, and combined with the game’s overall shuddering performance, you will be missing a lot of the attacks you thought you had in the bag, leading to a lot of deaths, a lot of frustration, and this is made even more frustrating because you know this game has fun gameplay buried under all the terrible design choices and technical issues. But because of those issues, it’s far too rare for you to actually get to that great gameplay.

PI.EXE had so much potential to be better than it is, but these poor design choices and performance issues really do rob it of that potential. If this wasn’t the case, I might be recommending this game to you as one of the sleeper hits of the year. As-is, I don’t think I can recommend this game at all. What a shame.

tl;dr – PI.EXE is an Action-Platformer where you play an energy sword-wielding computer program fighting against a spreading computer virus. The core gameplay here had real potential, with this game’s best moments delivering smooth, delightful action as you slash through hordes of enemies. Unfortunately, this gameplay is ruined by terrible performance issues and some really poor design choices that slow down the game’s pacing and cause your attacks to stop working as you’re forced to recharge, sometimes as you’re in the middle of a difficult series of maneuvers. As a result, what could have been a joy is instead infuriating, resulting in a mess of a gameplay experience that’s a terrible disappointment.

Grade: C-

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