Esse Proxy Review - Steam Gamer

Esse Proxy is a gory visceral top-down twin stick shooter set in a dystopian cyberpunk world, every kill shot triggers a slight slow motion effect allowing you to reposition your mouse and line up for the next scaling blow while you’re weaving your way with surgical Precision through the well-designed levels. This whole game is designed to get you into a literal gameplay loop where you’re bobbing your head to the beats of music while learning the levels and layouts, you’re dying an awful lot but it’s all part of the game.

Being aware of a gameplay Loop has never been this enjoyable the enjoyment doesn’t last too long though because as proxy is a very short game at the moment, I spent around 4 hours to complete the whole thing and then just jumped back in again to play some more levels, if you’re better than me which isn’t too difficult to do, you might complete the game in under 2 hours. During a playthrough there are very few games where retrying a level 100 times is fun but Esse Proxy is one of those games, half of the time you don’t even realize it because the in-game Retro synth music just blasts through your headphones without stopping even if you die the score keeps on rolling and your heart isn’t supposed to skip a beat!

The premise of these levels is simple, you need to make it from A to B and in between them there’s a ton of enemies blocking your way, it’s up to you to deal with them with your guns, their guns, melee attacks and special powers that vary between each of the three main characters or just make a run for it depending on how you do and how long you take to complete that level you get a rating at the end, if you want you can almost play this game like a stealth game and barely ever die but that’s not what the devs want you to do, this game uses everything in its power to dissuade you from using that tactic, the music just keeps pumping those adrenaline receptors, the kill streaks you can weave, how smoothly you can kill an enemy and pick up their gun, aim it towards the next guy and fill that person with lead too, you are supposed to go in head first and play this game in style because that is where Esse Proxy shines.

Fights are typically fair, there are multiple solutions to a problem, you have an one time per level special ability to help you get through difficult parts of the level, this game does an excellent job at striking a balance between difficulty, gunplay and fun. Though while playing the game, I did notice the occasional frame rate drops. in a game this smooth these drops are very noticeable and very problematic because it gets you killed but more so, it takes you out of that flow of gameplay loop and once that happens the whole purpose of the game kind of fades away, this is a game that really requires a steady 60 FPS or more I hope there will be some updates with additional optimization.

Overall, Esse Proxy is an unparalleled experience you don’t see very often, it is a little on the short side but if you are fine with a dense game jam-packed with great levels, awesome weapons, visceral gory combat and those freaking amazing techno beats this small indie game has you covered and an easy recommendation from us.

Purchase Esse Proxy on Steam!