Retro graphics, check. A certain old-school arcade simplicity and brutality, check. A budget price, sure. Gutwhale gets some things right, and I suppose isn’t truly horrible, but there’s just no joy in its setup involving you trying to survive level after level having to pick up and bullet you shoot and dodge enemies. In particular, being dropped to the next floor often seems to leave everything to chance so any run feels like it could end at any time simply on the random luck of where you drop and what sort of enemies are there. There’s just not much here to latch onto to eke out enjoyment, it’s just there determined to be hard… but I suppose for some people that may be a draw. More power to them.