Motorslice is an anime-styled action game that mixes giant bosses, parkour traversal, and a minimalist design. On paper, it’s a blend that should work really well. Yet Motorslice veers between moments of excellence and many, many moments of frustration. Across the 11 hours it took me to complete it, Motorslice drew me in at various points and at others pushed me away so hard that I had to knuckle down to get to the end. That cut through the logo? That’s the good, seperated from the bad.
In Motorslice, P & Orbie are tasked with taking out rogue construction machines in a world where some kind of apocalypse has happened. While you control P to get through the levels, narratively you take on the role of Orbie. Orbie is a scout drone that acts as our eyes into the word and assists P where needed. Orbie can also be a bit weird, with conversations taking on a bit of a sexual nature even though P can’t understand Orbie’s bleeping. P’s occasional seductive poses can be a bit offputting too, with how in your face it can all be, but you can avoid it for the most part by picking more sensible dialogue options with Orbie instead of the more, let’s say, fawning ones.
There are different zones within the megastructure that P & Orbie are sent to, with the sole objective of destroying the machines that inhabit it. It seems these machines, based on construction vehicles, may have had something to do with whatever brought the downfall of society but you are left to guess about much of the world as there is very little lore given. Combat is simple enough with one hit enough to take out the basic enemies. You can parry their attacks and knock projectiles back, but don’t expect a lot of depth as there are very few enemy types, and they can feel a bit too spread out at times.
Traversal in Motorslice is not the best. P needs to climb and run along walls, scale pipes, and avoid traps. There is also motorslicing, which is when P uses her Chainsaw on specific surfaces to travel across them. It gets a bit of getting used to but the motorslicing is better than the parkour movement. Sometimes when you want P to run along a wall she will try to climb it instead, or vice versa. Other times it feels like there is input delay where pressing jump results in nothing except P falling to her graphic death. Then other times the camera may just move into an awkward position so you can’t see where you’re going. At the end of the game you are given a stat of how many times P died, and I reckon most of those could have been avoided if the platforming was more responsive, because Motorslice is otherwise not a hard game.
Motorslice’s boss battles pit you against giant construction machines including a digger, and an earthbreaker. They should provide a big challenge but all you need to do is motorslice them on their weakpoints and avoid getting in their way as they roll towards you. Again, more deaths against bosses came from traversal issues than their attack patterns.
Generally, though, I like the design of Motorslice’s world. Its simple palette gives it an eye catching design with the outdoor areas really standing out, especially the moments where you can see the superstructure almost in full, letting you observe how far you have gone and how far you still need to go. The indoor areas are understandably dark due to lack of a light source – aside from Orbie – and while there are good challenges to tackle in them, I could not wait to get back outside. Motorslice’s levels are at least worth exploring with additional hidden orbs dotted around that you can collect, some in simple to reach areas and others requiring a bit of skill to navigate.
