Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer (Xbox Series X)

It’s not rare for a young gamer to become so captivated with the medium or one specific game franchise that they start imagining what kind of video game they’d make if they could. There’s often an earnest innocence in terms of what they’ll design, not caring about budgets, scope, or really appealing to any sensibilities besides their own, but if that kid does go on to become a programmer, they often let reality influence their work, usually for the better admittedly. But what if a kid’s idea of a video game could be made without any of those pesky realistic limitations? That is, essentially, the premise of Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer, a first person shooter that feels ripped straight from the fantasies of a teenager with no shame, no proof-reading, and a desire to be just as cool as the game that inspired its hypothetical creator.

 

One of the most important things to know about Slayers X before starting it is who created it, or rather, who created it within the game’s fiction. Zane Lofton was first seen in Hypnospace Outlaw, a teenager at the turn of the century whose webpage shows us he loves rock music, violence, and self-insert fiction that makes him look cool. A fan of a first-person shooter game similar to Doom, Zane wrote down the early ideas for his own game, but in Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer we actually see him returning to the game twenty years later with enough money to bring the game to life finally and a coder friend on the hook for realizing it. Thus, the game looks like it was made in the 1990s while containing similar sensibilities to the games of the time with quick movement, secret areas, small but dense levels, and a whole lot of violence.

While we are given the context for what this game’s style will be before we jump in, once the game starts, you instead mostly see the imagined story for Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer. A cooler version of Zane is the hero, an incredibly capable and beloved rich guy who is also training to be an X Slayer under Mikey Sikey (who is the front man of Zane’s favorite band Seepage). Right out of the gate we get hilarious wish fulfillment in the form of this game world, even random rats making sure to tell us that Zane is very cool, but a gory shooter needs conflict and the X Slayer base is attacked by the Psyko Sindikate, the group looking into tapping into the same Hackblood energy that gives Zane his over-the-top strength. From there most of the game is about taking down the Psykos, but every now and then we get cutscenes that are animated in gloriously retro 3D and we actually learn more about the game’s main villain, Mevin. Mainly, we learn Mevin is based on a person from Zane’s life, Zane’s boss at a dollar store/laundromat, and we see other fun touches like most of the game taking place in areas from his hometown of Boise, Idaho.

 

In fact, one of the best things about Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer is appreciating all the efforts to make the game feel like an authentic realization of the game some kid fantasized making. The lack of any edits to his vision lead to many amusing touches like typos being spread out fairly reasonably throughout the game. While Psyko Sindikate is possibly just a good pun, we do see him struggling to spell words a teenager might not have down yet like overlooking typos such as the one in the name of the game itself or his failed attempt to spell “diarrhea” which pairs well with his sense of humor being trapped somewhere between mature and immature. He wants to make jokes about turds and has some knowledge about naughtier things, but he also seems unwilling to step into full on adult jokes. Instead his taunts or jokes by way of enemies and level design include things like him bragging about “getting with” some Psyko’s grandmother like that was some awesome insult. While you do fight actual turds and there’s a particularly gross ride at an amusement park, mostly the juvenile humor can actually be amusing because of the filter that we’re seeing Zane include it because he thinks it’s a great joke or that it’s appropriately edgy and would suit his in-game persona.

 

One of the best things about the premise though is how it informs the area design. While the kind of shooters that would hypothetically influence Zane usually involve hellish worlds or big enemy bases, Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer taking place around Zane’s hometown of Boise means it aims to make entertaining levels out of mundane places. You fight your way through the dollar store he works at, you drop by local businesses like the arcade/laser tag arena, and the amusement park is actually based on potatoes for a fun strange twist. While the Slayers elements Zane concocted for his personal myth can take you to more outlandish areas, that mix of fun over-the-top settings alongside more mundane places like a trailer park keeps reminding us of the strange lens we’re meant to be viewing this game through. Areas are even filtered through his own opinion of them, making some places a bit stranger as we see his low opinion of them manifest by way of silly setpieces.

Even with the frequent allusions to this all being a hypothetical teenager’s creation, Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer does have some creativity that works on its own merits. The Glass Blasta for example is a shotgun that fires glass shards, but rather than finding ammo for it laying about like most weapons, the rebellious teenage spirit comes alive as you actually need to smash windows you find to get your refills. The x100 Rapid Mutilator is a minigun, but its barrel is outfitted with blades so it can be used as a chainsaw when spinning and it shoots so fast you can even point it down to go airborne. Funnily enough, the S-Blade, your initial Hackblood tool that lets you turn enemy essence into beams you fire by slashing the blade, feels a bit too limited with its resource cost to be as cool as Zane imagines it to be, but overall your growing arsenal is enjoyable to swap between because most are powerful or serve clear purposes, the ammo management making the hordes of enemies you face more challenging as you balance your attack options to avoid being left weak against the tougher foes.

 

Once we start looking outside of the entertaining execution on the premise though, we find that maybe Zane’s ideas for gameplay aren’t as sound. The enemy placement and threat level is usually not as inspired as the neat background details or silly attempts to portray the world an angry teenage boy would find cool, perhaps because simply blowing enemies to pieces is likely cool enough on its own. There are few true bosses, but even the general enemies you face are often perhaps a bit too accommodating to the idea you’ll probably enjoy touring the levels more than fighting in them. Standard Psykos can open fire on you but aren’t too tough, Injectas covered in syringes and the floating evil brains focus too much on getting close so backpedaling as you open fire works too well, and the clowns known as Springjackers that do pack a punch use a weapon that takes time to detonate and is too easy to avoid. Even some of the later game villains come after you’ve gotten all the best gear so you just need to not waste the good stuff on the rabble to handle them well enough, although at least the endgame stages do start really packing places with enemies or make more demanding platforming segments so you still face something that takes a bit of work to overcome. Levels do often involve finding keys or otherwise opening up paths that involve you weaving around the stage a bit rather than only pressing forward, the exploration working well for making you poke around to find amusing secrets or other places where Zane left his mark, but concepts don’t often lead to exciting gameplay scenarios. The shooting is solid enough and the enemies are shifted around enough that its odd charm carries it to the end, but the types of danger you face feel like they need to be better able to hold up against the X Slayer for this power fantasy to have teeth.

THE VERDICT: Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer revels in being the exact kind of game an edgy 15 year old wishes they could make, the player turning baddies into bloody chunks while making juvenile quips. An extra layer is added to it by hypothetically being designed by such a 15 year old, making each instance of something edgy more amusing but also giving us a range of creative weapons and concepts because that kid can’t help but put his real life into the game as well as his ideas of what seems cool. Taking in all the ideas for stages and situations ends up more entertaining than the actual enemy blasting though, the foes only putting up a good enough fight to help keep you on board until the next amusing execution of this game’s unique premise.

 

And so, I give Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer for Xbox Series X…

An OKAY rating. Even for those who haven’t played Hypnospace Outlaw, it’s pretty easy to pick up on what this game is doing thematically and be amused by its efforts to stick to it. Zane never has a self-aware moment about this world he’s created, and while it is constantly reveling in its commitment to edgy humor and attempts at being awesome, it also thankfully isn’t drawing from the same well constantly. That early focus on praising Zane gives way to segments like him making fun of a fast food place or the local potato festival, and his occasional attempts to make a plot with stakes also comically line up with a clear misunderstanding of what makes them work in their context in the stories he’s no doubt inspired by. You could probably play this game on its easiest difficulty and just enjoy the way this world was constructed to execute on its premise of being a game a teenager with no self-awareness might make if he had the resources, but if you do want something out of its shooting and levels, things get a bit less exciting. There are fights that are amusing in concept, the guns do their job and some have neat concepts, but the actual combat doesn’t pack the punch of the first-person shooters that Zane is trying to imitate. The enemy design feels like the main culprit, many of them not willing to push the player too much so they can’t be the kind of threat that makes a fight thrilling. The ammo management across your various guns as well as the area design do mean the fights aren’t boring, but they’re not bringing enough to the table that this game would stand out if stripped of its compelling concept.

 

Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer funnily enough ends up embodying what a teen’s idea of video game would probably be if realized. It is technically better put together than such a thing would be (that coder friend of Zane’s who is actually making it no doubt had to put in the simpler touches like proper checkpoints) but when it comes to the action, it’s often more about being cool than being the kind of challenge you push to complete or need to think on. Instead, a good deal of the game is about being awesome, whether that’s by trying to make the creator seem cooler, inventing scenarios and weapons that are impressive and audacious, or including some crass humor. Seeing Zane Lofton’s vision for a game is the best part, the action feeling almost like it tries to avoid catching your attention so you mostly remember the excellently executed style above all else.