There came a point in our time with Mother Russia Bleeds that instilled a sense of  déjà vu in us that we haven’t been able to shake since.

In one of the early mission we fought our way through a gang of low-level enemies in silence. Once we reached the level’s boss we exchanged some fruitless words before some superb outrun / synthwave music began playing and we fell into a hyper-violence trance, which only lifted when all the enemies were dead, or we were.

If that sounds familiar to you, you may have played one or both of the Hotline Miami games.

This seems to fit because both game series are from publisher Devolver Digital. The Mother Russia Bleeds’ Steam page even describes itself as a mix of Streets of Rage and Hotline Miami.

That’s certainly an apt description, however by the time we finished it, we felt like Mother Russia Bleeds wasn’t good enough to step out from Hotline Miami’s neon-drenched shadow.

What you have here is a side-scrolling beat ’em up that will feel familiar to anyone who played Double Dragon or Streets Of Rage back in the day.

You have a basic punch and kick, which can then be modified with jumps, dashes and grapples. From the get-go developers Le Cartel Studio did a sterling job making this classical control scheme feel brutal and satisfying.

Everything you do fills the screen with violence, gore and giblets. Every problem can be solved by making the nearest enemy’s head explode. You opinion on whether Mother Russia Bleeds trumps Hotline Miami in viscera depends on your tolerance for seeing people’s innards.

One rather satisfying mechanic is this regard is the charged-up punch attack you can unleash by holding down the punch button. Shamble over to a horde of enemies and this single hit will send them flying offscreen only to return bloodied and beaten. Each type of enemy has a few different models simulating varying levels of damage so you can see how badly you mess people up.

Apart from its eye-watering violence, what sets Mother Russia Bleeds apart from your average beat ’em up is a mechanic bound up in an in-game drug called Nekro. In the heat of battle you have access to three charges of the drug. It can either be used to heal the player or to send you into a berserk mode that will end the fight sooner.

Your syringes of Nekro can be refilled by sucking it out of defeated enemies who convulse on the floor. This is Mother Russia Bleeds’ biggest contribution to the genre: every fight is a management of your Nekro, when you dare to use it either defensively or offensively and trying to safely extract Nekro when the horde slowly approaches is tense.

From the moment you begin controlling one of the four protagonists you know this is going to be a decent romp… until about thirty minutes into the game. Because while the developers present everything brilliantly, problems with gameplay persist throughout.

There are too many instances in which players will find themselves punching air because an enemy is just slightly higher or lower than their character. The developers also occasionally ramp up the difficulty in pretty cheap ways, such as simply piling on more enemies or deploying mobs that can use ranged attacks.

Every inch of progress you claw from this game feels like a boring slog. Every time you enter a new area and begin a fight you know you’re in for an uphill battle. We’re not griping about the game’s overall, difficulty; the Souls series of games have proven developers can be unforgiving while still making a game that’s fun. Mother Russia Bleeds has a problem beyond difficulty.

Slow character movement makes progression tedious and it also ensures every encounter with an enemy with ranged attacks exasperating. The fact that every singular enemy can stun-lock you is bad on its own, but it’s made worse when a crowd of enemies corner you, as you’re guaranteed to lose most of your health bar.

Every enemy seems to be made out of titanium and requires dozens of hits to permanently put down. Each of the four playable characters has varying stats, but it just doesn’t gel when the one giant character that hits the hardest still takes multiple punches to put down even the weakest of enemies.

So, while you’re sitting on top of one enemy attempting to turn them into paste, an entire gang of enemies is trying to do the same to you. Any moment you start enjoying a fight in this game is usually the point at which a new band of foes arrive to destroy any warm feeling for the game you had.

We thought the co-op would make this better. By adding in more good guys we figured that the issues we had with the game could be overcome. Unfortunately we were wrong. The difficulty scaling to counterbalance more players works too well and you’re likely to become mentally defeated before too long.

The local-only co-op is a “choose your own poison” affair when you’re deciding to use AI or more real people.

The AI violently swings between impressively competent and something worse than brain dead. While the AI is great at simply brawling, as soon as anything special happens (such as any and all boss fights or objective items) you can count on your AI buddy to die immediately.

Real people are a better fit thanks to improved competence, but there’s no real progression to be had for your group and nothing that makes it more fun than single player. Castle Crashers, another group beat ’em up did this much better. There was loot to steal from your friends, the ability to battle each other to win the heart of a princess and online play.

It seems that the developers have kept the frustrating nature of the genre – forgetting that no arcade owners will be profiting every time we hit continue, and Mother Russia Bleeds suffers immensely because of it.

The game’s story doesn’t do much to redeem it. The premise is simple: you and three other characters – street-hardened brawlers – are abducted and experimented on leaving you with a dependence on the drug Nekro. You then uncover a plot of various organisations, both legal and illegal, tearing Russia apart and how this strange drug fits into the story.

Like Hotline Miami it’s a case of drugs and outside forces warping your sense of reality. However, plot developments are pretty easy to predict and while this genre of games isn’t renowned for its engrossing narratives, we were expecting something a little less pedestrian than what we got.

The visuals and soundtrack are the best parts of the game. Every character, screen and level in this game is a sight to behold. We really feel like everything here was lovingly crafted and you’ll want to divert your eyes away from the fight to see what’s going on in the background.

While that sounds like a distraction, it does so much to help create this lived-in world and what really pushed us to keep playing when the gameplay and story didn’t, was the thought of seeing some new scenery.

The music is top notch. This is definitely a title we suggest getting the soundtrack for because it’s worth listening and re-listening to. The marketing of the game states that the music “dynamically adjusts to match the gameplay” but all it seems to do is ramp up in volume and speed as fights get more intense.

Conclusion

If every review is advice ahead of a purchase, we find ourselves hard pressed to give this game a solid recommendation, so we’ll break it down like this:

If you want an ultra-violent game with addictive, challenging gameplay that keeps you hooked with interesting levels, outstanding music and a drug-fuelled story of paranoia, buy and play either one of the Hotline Miami games.

If you want a fun time aping classic beat ’em ups that you can enjoy with your friends while still having meaningfull progression, get Castle Crashers.

If, however, you want something in between those two games, and you’re a masochist who is looking for about five hours of pain, Mother Russia Bleeds may be what you want.

Review platform: PC | Code provided free of charge from the publishers