Chances are you've never played a game like Metal: Hellsinger from developer The Outsiders. The hyper stylish, gruesomely gorgeous rhythm-based FPS is only outmatched by its absolute adrenaline-pumping and headbang-inducing soundtrack. The heavy metal instrumentals along with the beautiful vocals feed your inner ultra instinct meter while you lay waste to demon hellspawn.
Enemies are plentiful, and the challenge can be brutal at times, but the key to being a successful demon slayer in Metal: Hellsinger is how well and how often your attacks and movement stay in line with the beat of the music. Each combo earned up to 16x increases your damage output, builds ultimate meters, and intensifies the beautifully scored soundtrack. Fret not Unknown demon slayer, because below are the 10 best tips and tricks for Metal: Hellsinger beginners.
10 Healing 101
One of the more important mechanics in Metal: Hellsinger is how you heal your player character. If you find yourself between a rock and a hard place while hunting demons, check to see if that rock is green. Green crystals, often attached to walls in the environment, offer plenty of health in a pinch. Just destroy the green crystals with your weapon and be close enough to collect them.
Slaughtering enemies is also a viable and often more practical way of healing if you can pull it off. Once an enemy takes enough damage they transition into a weakened vulnerable state and start flashing red. If you are close enough to the enemy you can initiate a slaughter kill by pressing the F key. And in proper Doom fashion, once the enemy is appropriately dispatched it will drop green health seeds as an offering for your troubles.
9 Trust Paz
Paz, also the narrator voiced by none other than Troy Baker, is the second weapon you acquire and is always available to you throughout your journey in Hell. Paz fires a single ball of flame each button press that doesn't do much damage at base Fury, however, Paz offers a more significant support function.
Paz is the only weapon that can maintain your Fury meter without having to land attacks, meaning you can maintain your multiplier through level transitions preventing you from losing Fury. First and foremost this means the beautiful soundtrack by Two Feathers, is always at maximum metal, and second, your weapons deal the most damage at maximum Fury.
8 Master Combos
Metal: Hellsinger has various Combos you can unlock by simply inputting the correct movement or attack combination. Discovering the Combos can range in difficulty as some can be unlocked as simple as pressing the dash key 3 times to perform a Triple Dash or as complex as Devils Flight. The best tip about Combos is that most of them unlock when you are successfully using all of your movement tools at your disposal.
Dash, soar, and jump around enemies to avoid their attacks, and you will often be rewarded with unlocking a Combo. If you want to memorize the exact button combinations for Combos, they can be found in the Codex on the menu screen of Metal: Hellsinger once they are unlocked.
7 Weak Points
Some enemies and Bosses in Metal: Hellsinger have visible weak points usually highlighted in a bright red area on their body. Focusing your attacks on these areas, while maintaining the highest Fury you can will ensure you are always pumping out the highest damage possible.
Your attacks will begin to weaken if you miss an attack in-line with the beat or if you go long stretches of time without attacking any enemies. Use Combos in conjunction with focusing on the enemy's weak areas to take them down at a rapid pace.
6 A/V Latency Test
Depending on your PC setup, you may need to adjust for latency between the audio and video cues you see and hear on-screen and the input recognition from your mouse and keyboard. This can be done easily from the Metal: Hellsinger gameplay settings menu. If you are noticing that your attacks should be landing on the beat of the music but are not, you should definitely consider readjusting the latency settings in the game's menu.
Metal: Hellsinger will notify you with on-screen prompts that tell you how well, or how poorly, you are keeping in rhythm with the beat. An attack that is exactly in tune with the beat will result in a Perfect rating, and those that fall just short will be given a Good rating. Missing the beat completely will result in a nasty onscreen fail marker and an audio cue.
5 Quick Reload
Of the Combos you can unlock in Metal: Hellsinger, the Quick Reload is the most vital one to master on your journey to defeat the Judges of Hell. Quick Reload, as the name suggests, allows you to drastically shorten the length of time it takes for your character to reload their weapon.
Quick reload acts much in the same way Gears of War handles its active reload in that in order to be successful you must time your reload button presses to the beat highlighted by the yellow arrows in your beat-lane on the sides of your crosshair. If done correctly the reload animation will shorten, and you will be back to murdering demons in no time.
4 Focus Fire
At times, the enemies in Metal: Hellsinger will group up and try to overwhelm you. Fear not brave Unknown as your demonic abilities allow you to dash, double jump, and soar over enemies to gain a better vantage point. Focus on one enemy at a time and concentrate on building, and maintaining, your Fury meter as fast as possible without taking damage.
Dispatching all enemies at once with a weapon ultimate too early will leave you with a low Fury multiplier. The game often tosses in harder enemies the deeper you get into a level and If there are no enemies to build your Fury meter, you may have to take on the tougher enemies with low damage output. The goal is to methodically whittle down the demons while maintaining a maximum Fury meter.
3 Master Torments
Torments are bonus stages available to you after you complete a level and defeat its boss. Torments add various difficulty modifiers to timed challenges in unique arena-style areas. After successfully completing a Torment, you are granted a special Sigil you can equip to your load-out before the mainline mission runs. Torments are often timed so pay close attention to the specific win conditions because once the Torment starts you will have little time to think.
2 Sigils Save Runs
Sigils in Metal: Hellsinger are special passive abilities that aid in your progress through levels and 2 Sigils can be equipped in the loadout menu at one time before each run. Sigils such as the Unyielding Fury protect your Fury meter from dropping below a certain multiplier threshold. When upgraded through additional Torment completions the multiplier protection percent increases with each level.
Other Sigils, like the Ultimate Sovereignty, passively increase your weapon's ultimate meter without action. This allows you to unleash your ultimate more frequently which will also help keep your Fury meter at maximum level.
1 Stay On Beat
Metal Hellsinger, much like Brace Yourself Games Crypt of The Necrodancer, requires you to stay on beat with the soundtrack as you move about the level and execute your attacks. Hellsinger allows you to build your Fury meter to a maximum of 16x where your weapons do the most damage and the heart-pounding metal music is at its most intense.
In Metal: Hellsinger, you have various weapons that unlock with progressing through the game. Each weapon you unlock comes outfitted with an ultimate ability meter when full allows you to fire a special attack. Maintain your Fury for as long as you can by attacking, using Paz and moving to the beat.