Back when I first tested Anger Foot, a little over a year ago, at BIG Festival 2023, I called it ‘the quintessential Devolver Digital release”, from what little I was able to test it out: small, but over-the-top. Cartoonish, but also ultra-violent. Easy to pick up and play, but hard to master. A first-person attempt at catching that ultra-hard and ultra-violent gameplay loop popularized by Devolver’s most iconic IP of all time, Hotline Miami. A year passed after that preview demo, and Anger Foot is finally out in full. Let’s give it a look and see if it was worth the wait.

I have to say, my legs are toned as hell.

So, let’s start off with the plot and premise, two things I haven’t had the opportunity to check out during last year’s demo. To be fair, I don’t know if that was a good thing or not. Anger Foot is actually the name of our protagonist, a John Wick-esque murder machine of a green dude who loves his sneaker collection to death. When the combined efforts of the villainous organizations of S*** City (yes, that’s the place’s name) steal Anger Foot’s prized sneaker collection, he decides to start a one-man murderous rampage over the town, killing everything and everyone with his feet and whatever guns he is able to procure on his path.

Literal toilet humor.

Each level is comprised of a series of rooms and corridors full of enemies to kill. You have two methods to do so: you can either use your (angry) feet, or you can use guns. Your kicks are powerful, killing folks in one single hit, and depending on the kind of sneaker (power-up) you’re wearing, you can earn some passive bonuses. For instance, a specific sneaker grants you extra ammo for your gun whenever you kill an enemy with your feet. This is perfectly suited for folks wielding close-quarter weapons, such as crocodiles wielding baseball bats.

Guns are useful against, well, pretty much everyone else. Enemies are usually armed, and you can’t take that many hits before you die. Sure, you can take some, which is already better than being a one-hit-kill twig such as in Hotline Miami, but that doesn’t make much of a difference when seven goons with Uzis fire off bullets at you at once. Guns kill enemies with ease, but you need to pay attention to your ammo counter. Unless you’re wielding that aforementioned pair of sneakers, they do not reload. Once they’re empty, they’re useless. You have to throw the gun away (you can do that in order to stun a foe) and pick a new one up.

Kicking foes is great, but nothing beats wielding a submachine gun.

Anger Foot is all about quick reflexes, situational awareness, and fast decision-making. One false step, you’re dead. Plan something poorly with the five milliseconds of time you have at your disposal, you’re dead. Any mistake, you’re dead. You have infinite continues, and the timer resets whenever you die, so you’re not punished for dying; you’re just wasting your time. Some levels will require dozens upon dozens of resets before you perfectly learn how to deal with each enemy in order. Once you do, you feel a borderline surreal John Wick-like surge of adrenaline, killing everything in sight with sheer precision before anyone else can even decide to fight against you.

Gameplay-wise, I don’t have a lot to complain about. Sure, the first-person viewpoint doesn’t let you plan things ahead, and the difficulty curve can be borderline infuriating, but the arcade-like structure and high-octane action are downright addictive. I have more qualms regarding Anger Foot‘s presentation than anything else, but then again, it’s not exactly bad. The game as a whole is actually pretty good, but there are a handful of things that really annoyed me. One of them is the framerate, which felt inconsistent, especially during some action-heavy sequences. Thankfully, these drops were occasional, and the game actually looks quite good, with a distinct art style.

I think this was supposed to be funny, but it simply wasn’t. The whole game, in fact.

No, my main issues lie with the game’s edgelord sense of “humor”, if you can even call it that. From the name of the city, to every single joke being about how the place is run by criminals and that crimes are committed with frequency and normalcy, Anger Foot did not make me chuckle once. Just like Sludge Life before it, the game desperately tries to evoke a feeling of being rebellious and anti-estabilishment, but this is already what we expect from a game by Devolver at this point. it’s nothing new, and it’s quite tiresome.

The overly loud and abrasive music being played throughout the entire game was also annoying, but to be fair, I get why it is there, at the very least. It’s bass-heavy and beat-driven; it almost makes you want to perform a clean murder spree to the beat of the level. At times, it gets the job done; it pumps you up and gets you angry and motivated, like John Wick before it. Other times, on the other hand, it just felt like too much to handle at once, almost an assault to the senses.

These sneakers give you an extra bullet whenever you kill an enemy with your feet.

As previously mentioned, however, I still fully recommend Anger Foot. Sure, the juvenile sense of humor never landed, and the level design basically forces you to die over and over again, with little time for you to plan or react, but it’s addictive. The gameplay loop just works. It’s arcadey as all hell, it’s replayable, full of secrets, and there’s no better feeling than being able to complete a level with 100% of enemies being beaten, without ever being touched by a bullet. Anger Foot is flawed, and quite arrogant at times, but it was well worth the wait.

Anger Foot is available now on PC.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB.

A copy of Anger Foot was provided by the publisher.