Obey Me Review: A Holypunk take on classic co-op brawlers

Obey Me is a brawler that blends two worlds into one and has an old school aesthetic that might take gamers back.

Title: Obey Me
Developer: Error 404 Game Studios
Publisher: Blowfish Studios
Platforms: PlayStation 4 (version reviewed), Xbox One, Steam
Release Date: April 27th, 2020

Obey Me is both a single-player and multiplayer experience carved into one. The story follows a young woman named Vanessa Held who is a Soul Huntress demon, set on completing different missions. She is teamed up with her talking dog companion, Monty who is a hellhound.

Both characters have their own unique personalities and have plenty of humor. Vanessa is a mix of serious and comedic as to where Monty is a happy-go-lucky type of dog who will talk his share of trash.

A war is going on between the forces of heaven and hell for the souls of humankind. It’s your job to help turn the tide by going through waves of enemies. This includes enemies from both sides. You’ll encounter foes small and big, including bosses.

And the significance of the duo’s bond plays a heavy role in the concept of the gameplay in Obey Me. You can choose to play solo and control Vanessa, or you can connect online and have someone team up with you as Monty. When playing solo, Monty will automatically attack in battle.

You can get him to do certain attacked as you advance in the game and unlock more moves. You will earn some currency while you play and defeat enemies. These can be used to unlock abilities for either Vanessa or Monty.

There is a blue meter that you can fill up by collecting special material found around each level. Filling this up will allow both characters to morph into one, dealing more damage to enemies. On top of this, health will be regenerated in this form.

It doesn’t last too long, but it is one of those cool moments in Obey Me where you feel nearly unstoppable. The only thing is that it takes some time to fill up completely. Fortunately, it does not need to be full to be used. However, the effect lasts longer when it is.

The overall presentation gives off as a bit of an old school, top-down brawler game. If you grew up playing games in the ’90s and early 2000s, you may have at least seen games like this. The movements do have some slight lag at times, but it doesn’t kill the experience.

Each level is broken up into sections in Obey Me. All of these have you fend off a group of enemies throughout. Starting out, it’s not much, but as you progress, the hoards grow.

The game essentially tests you the more you fight. This adds to its challenge, considering that you have limited healing options to work with among other things. This is where you can button mash like the good old days. Unleash chaos on your foes with combos.

Once you complete a section, you will be graded on different things such as efficiency, time, and damage dealt. On top of this, you will be graded once again once you complete a chapter. Combat rating, time, and death count make up for the grades here.

The story itself isn’t mind-blowing, but it’s easy to like Vanessa and Monty and the humorous nature of the writing. And the concept of a partial demon hacking away at foes of different realms is a fun one. Giving the characters their dynamic personalities gives the story more life.

In the end, though, it’s the gameplay that is its juice in Obey Me. And being able to get upgrades to your abilities to deal more damage is rewarding. Stringing together combos is satisfying once you unlock more of those upgrades.

And the ability to freely turn multiplayer on and off mid-game in Obey Me gives you a couple of different ways to play. This is good because you don’t need to exit the story mode to get your online fix. It’s similar to other games in the past where you can receive help during your single-player experience.

A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with .5 increments. Click here to learn more about our Review Policy.