As a 2D tribute to id Software’s legendary Doom, Butcher does one thing right: gratuitous violence. As you jump, shoot and rip your way through 20+ levels of high-octane carnage, Butcher coats the environment with all the blood and guts you could wish for in a game inspired by one of gaming’s all-time greats.
Set in some sort of weird sci-fi universe, Butcher’s art style emits more of a pixel-art Quake vibe than Doom. The thick greys and industrial themed locations in the game’s earlier sections are simplistic in their direction and while the artwork doesn’t seem to exude much in the ways of quality, slowing down and taking a look at the environment does show off a nice attention to detail for background assets. Things get impressively more detailed the further you get, with the forest in particular being full of small features such as rope vines, chains and moss on ceilings.
They won’t be the same for long however, as Butcher puts you straight into the action with a powerful shotgun. Just like Doom, Butcher’s weapons feel powerful. Whether it be the assault rifle or the high-powered grenade launcher, dispatching enemies always feels intensely satisfying. Shotguns turn foes into mush in a single blast, the flamethrower sets enemies ablaze in seconds and they suitably scream in pain. As you mow down hordes of soldiers, dogs and weird flying ghost things, the map will quickly get drenched in blood, bits of chunky meat and swinging intestines when you kill enemies on platforms. In the most ’90s phrase I can think of at this moment, it’s pretty “gnarly” dude.
While Butcher may be good fun for an hour or so—which is good as most of the achievements are to finish it in under an hour, it does start to get repetitive after a while. Environments are designed well, but that’s because most of them are designed extremely similarly so the good design for previous stages starts to feel stale after a while. While set pieces are unique, such as running away from saw blades and solving puzzles to escape it, many maps follow the same general design with large rooms full of different enemy waves that you must survive in order to proceed and long, drawn out corridors.
These encounters don’t get boring per se, as they do add different enemies or add more ammo for a different type of weapon forcing you to change you style, but they do get repetitive over time. The simplistic jumps and basic puzzles don’t add much to the experience and are basically there just to slow down the pacing. This isn’t the point of Butcher anyways, and what Butcher aims to emulate well it emulates very well. There’s very little to the game, but what’s there is highly polished even if that polish it repeated over and over again.
It wouldn’t be a game inspired by old-school shooters if it didn’t have secrets. Throughout the numerous different locales, you’ll be able to discover silver skulls hiding in hard to reach places, some of which I haven’t even figured out how to get yet. These skulls don’t have any benefits to the player like in some games, but they are a nice addition for authenticity’s sake.
Summary
If you’re looking for a simple, affordable game to remind you of the days of ’90s hyper-violence, Butcher has you covered. Offering you hardcore, gut-blasting fun throughout over twenty levels is a good deal for its price tag. While it doesn’t get old, it does distract from the feeling of variety that the games it takes inspiration from had in excess.
Lewis is a games journalist, freelance gaming and consumer-tech journalist. They contributed 344 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: has since served as Editor-in-Chief at StealthOptional and Gaming Editor at MSPoweruser, with bylines at Gfinity Esports and FRVR.