LEFT ALIVE Review | The Difficulty, The Shooting, The Mikhail

Five years ago, there was a little bit of buzz around a game that Square Enix was publishing. Some of the people involved in making it had worked on Dark Souls, Armored Core, Metal Gear Solid. But, then it came out, and people were not happy one bit. We're going back to 2019 to look at a stealth-action survival game that was a Front Mission spin-off. We're talking LEFT ALIVE.

On this episode of Stealth Boom Boom, we look at how something resembling a bit of a dream team was brought together to make this game at developer Ilinx. We also discuss how Toshifumi Nabeshima was fielding questions about how hard the game was before it was even released, as well as that initial response from the general public.

In our review, you'll hear some chat on the trouble with normal difficulty, the enemies' exceptional vision, the red laser sights of 100 guns pointing at you, Casual Mode and how it actually allows you to perform stealth takedowns, flying drones (that can move at speed on the ground), running away from soldiers that lose interest, uninteresting challenge, the question of whether enemies can hear you or not, stealth in an open warzone, the Enemy Sensor, CAN MAN, escorting survivors that will inevitably be seen and lead to your downfall, bullet sponge baddies with bulletproof heads, awful aiming, harmful (but not fatal) Molotovs, three different kinds of landmines and the overly-complicated crafting menus, the fun to be had in one of the few agile Wanzer mechs available to you, battering a guy from behind with a pipe as a treat, a solid and silly premise that is treated with far too much seriousness in its story, the dweeby twerpy dorky loser Mikhail, a loan company, pristine posters for World of Tanks, and CAUTION: THE ENEMY IS APPROACHING.

After all that, we take you through what some of the critics were saying about the game around the time it came out, and then we give you our final verdicts on whether LEFT ALIVE is a Pass, a Play, or an Espionage Explosion.

For those who would like to play along at home, we'll be discussing, reviewing and dissecting James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing on the next episode of Stealth Boom Boom.

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