Gori: Cuddly Carnage review: Hoverboards, hairballs & a hurricane of murder

I had no idea what I was in for with Gori: Cuddly Carnage when I jumped in to review it. It looked like a neon-bedazzled game about a cute cat riding a cool hoverboard through a towering city. What it is, instead, is a blood-soaked, foul-mouthed maelstrom of sick jumps, rainbow rail-grinding, and unicorn-mangling hack-and-slash combat. It’s not perfect, especially when it gets a little annoying trying to be edgy, but this is a surprisingly good action hack-and-slash romp that handles all of its gameplay elements with solid quality.

The toys have taken over

Gori: Cuddly Carnage takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where all the humans on Earth have either been killed off or escaped the planet. The culprit is a toy company called Cool Toyz™ that made some unicorn “synthetic pets” and other AI-infused toys that were so smart they started an uprising and violently overthrew human civilization. A few remnants of the catastrophe are a prototype cat companion known as Gori, a swear-heavy, sentient bladed hoverboard known as F.R.A.N.K., and an AI companion with real feelings (mostly depressed) known as CH1-P. The trio were rejected projects that their creator didn’t want to destroy, but they’re also the only Cool Toyz™ that didn’t turn against humanity when the caca hit the fan. They’d like to reunite safely with their creator, but that means killing off the Adorable Army of toys infesting Earth.

Gori: Cuddly Carnage is dripped in a 1990s/2000s era of reckless and abrasive grindhouse moodiness that made up a notable part of games like Lollipop Chainsaw and No More Heroes. The Adorable Army of sentient Cool Toyz™ is a generally disgusting mix of the idea of a cute child’s toy and heinous mutations added by the army to bolster its ranks since it took over Earth and put more focus into militarized murder. When I watched the introduction of an off-putting Kewpie-esque unicorn doll as its jaw stretched out of its lips and wings tore out of its back, I thought, “Oh, that’s going to make for upsetting dreams.” That said, it makes hacking them to bits all the more satisfying - especially the boss toys.

After all, on the other side of this equation are the adorable Gori and the mouthy F.R.A.N.K. Players play as Gori riding F.R.A.N.K. through most of the game, including all the fun and carnage that entails. F.R.A.N.K. can do some sick jumps and double jumps, grind on billboards and rainbow rails, and rocket boost to give Gori some speed and momentum. Most of this makes for platforming, but F.R.A.N.K. is also packed with blades and a wrecking ball for Gori to employ in mauling the Adorable Army. And when I say maul, I mean maul. Most encounters, when done correctly, will result in vibrant geysers of unicorn… fluid (they’re toys, I don’t know) and bits flying in every direction.

Gori is also adorable as all get-out and only speaks in meows. He even has a dedicated meow button which I got great mileage out of between dialogue sections. It should come as little surprise that F.R.A.N.K., having the ability to understand Gori and speak, does the talking for the both of them in most cases. I will say that F.R.A.N.K. is a lot, and so are some of the speaking enemies. F.R.A.N.K. is like a more swear-heavy Claptrap from Borderlands, or Orko from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. They’re not entirely my cup of tea for long periods, but if you don’t mind those characters, F.R.A.N.K. will probably be fine.

The music in Gori: Cuddly Carnage is a good accent on the whole package. It’s a guitar riff-heavy and crunchy soundtrack that serves well to accentuate the activity through the game, up to and including adding comedic elements to the experience. I had myself a good laugh when I realized there where lyrics in one of the songs when the music swells and a chorus just belts out “SLIME.” You’ll never guess what kind of gameplay that song is attached to, but it’s that kind of silliness that blends well and tempers Gori’s grit, making the whole thing a palpably pulpy experience of music, visuals, and narrative.

Adult supervision suggested

So, what we have here gameplay-wise is a hoverboard-riding, hack-and-slash, action-platformer. The best way I can think to describe it foundationally is that it’s like if Crash Bandicoot level design had Jet Set Radio movement and there were Devil May Cry enemy arenas and combat sections between platforming. The best part is that it handles all of this surprisingly well with only a few slumps.

Gori: Cuddly Carnage is broken up into main levels and bonus challenge levels, each with a vibrant theme to them. To stop the Adorable Army, the team needs a weapon that must be assembled from items protected by bristling Toy Generals. That means teleporting into places like a neon-strewn dystopian slum, a city converted into a giant arcade, and a toxic sludge-filled Cool Toyz™ factory. From there, Gori rides F.R.A.N.K. through wide-open mazes of urban decay and gaudy cuteness, using the hoverboard’s abilities to grind on rainbow rails, wallride billboards, and bounce on various environmental bits. At the end of each level, a boss battle awaits that will utilize a variety of combat and platforming elements and each was fun to fight.

I was generally satisfied with Gori’s platforming. It’s fast and sometimes twitchy, but it never felt out of control. The level design also makes for a reasonable challenge to platforming skills, especially if you want to finish a level under a time limit to get bonus rewards. F.R.A.N.K. also has abilities that use fuel and grinding rails is one of the fastest ways to get fuel back, so being stylish where you can pays off. The only points at which I saw some real jank were when I’d try to go an opposite direction after grinding on a billboard. Gori has floaty physics and going the wrong way on a billboard grind felt a little too easy. The game also seemed to have a bit of trouble with homing attacks on airborne enemies, but combat is still a place where this game shines.

Gori will often be set upon by swarms of Adorable Army mutants and be forced to dispatch them. That’s when he wields F.R.A.N.K.. In combat, F.R.A.N.K. can deploy blades from either side for a spin attack, unleash a club to smash enemies and break shields, or be used as a bazooka to hit distant enemies or objective points. These three main attacks can be charged up with F.R.A.N.K.’s fuel to unleash devastating carnage and each has a viable place in the game’s combat. Gori also has an executing finisher that will restore his health and fuel, as well as a shield that can be used to reflect enemy projectiles back at them. All of these things make for an altogether solid suite of tools and using it all effectively is key to racking up huge combos in this game’s fights, which will net you resources to upgrade all of Gori and F.R.A.N.K.’s abilities.

All in all, and with very few caveats, Gori plays quite satisfyingly. On normal difficulty, I think I only died by accident one time. It never really felt too easy or unfair. For those who want more of a challenge, there are two more difficulties over the normal, one of which can only be played if you beat the game on hard. Add to that a level rank system that rewards you for doing well and secret collectibles that can unlock various unique features of the game. That means there are a few good reasons to replay levels, which you can do at any time.

Things are going to get Gori

I had no idea what I was in for with Gori: Cuddly Carnage, and I certainly didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Its crassness is kind of a take-it-or-leave-it for me, but it fits a ridiculous world taken over by crazed toys that are in desperate need of murder by a sentient cat friend and his blade hoverboard. And that feels like a good way to look at most of Gori. It sets out do all sorts of things gameplay-wise and it does all of them pretty well to make a ridiculously graphic world and narrative pretty dang fun. Mind the tykes in the room when you’re playing this one.

This review is based on a digital PC copy of the game provided by the publisher. Gori: Cuddly Carnage comes out on Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on August 29, 2024.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.