I got around to playing ultrakill and its actually quite good, like real fucking good. It has exceptionally tight design, its easy to start and hard to master, weapons have multiple mechanics associated with them some obvious some not so obvious that are also easy to use and hard to master while adding tons of variety to combat, with each weapon having 6 variants with their own multiple gimmicks, totally something like 24 weapons + 3 utility arms, its impossible to to not find at least one weapon to love. Movement is good, its fast, responsive, its challenging and it has tons of mechanics, gomba stomping, dashing, walljumping, diving, sliding, etc. And the levels are also all amazing, all of them are very unique and memorable and also extremely distinct from one another, there's insane variety and levels change so fast that they never outstay their welcome.
Bosses are also pretty fucking kino. V2, V2-2 And Gabriel 2 are legitimately Sekiro tier and the earthshaker blows the icon of sin the fuck out of the water.
The music is also really good, its a great mix of background and foreground, its catchy, it fits the atmosphere and it also has great variety.
And idunno some people might find it gay but I also find the little opera on going in the background about the great war and the machines and the angels and the sinners to be really cool and endearing. It takes itself very seriously, despite the community being full of redditors there's no irony or self deprecation or marvel humor, at no point during the story does the game go "heh, that's silly gun go brr" all the stuff about the blood drinking machines is presented completely straight and its meant to be taken seriously. Same with gabriel, same with everything. It just ranges between earnest drama and tragedy, there's no comedy. And you know what, I think the concept of a sentient war machine that is literally forced to kill humans to stay alive (because blood is literally fuel) to be a pretty compelling one.
Like its just an amazingly well made game all around created by someone who clearly loves making it.
I'm aware that the community is filled with unironic pink triangles
(and their subreddit literally had a pedophilia problem with users encouraging little kids to wear women's undergarments and post pictures of themselves to the point where a self identified moderator had to step in and tell them wtf is happening) [
A] and the devteam is pozzloaded beyond belief but iirc it didn't start out that way.
Originally it was just a passion project of some guy that made made in his free time that he did as a hobby that grew out of control and troons started whispering in his ears, since he was already part of troon positive communities he ended up falling for it. I've seen his comments and interactions with the community and the guy in general seems to be pretty immature, (more imature than his age would suggest), so it doesn't surprise me that he would be suggestible and suseptible to troon influence.
Despite all that, the passion for the project really does shine through, it is a labour of love and I would definitely recommend it.