Ack! Mondays! Not everyone hates the beginning of the week. If you’re really interested, I actually don’t like Tuesdays, but the consensus is that the start of the week is the worst. Perhaps because you’ve had a great weekend and are now nursing a hangover, it’s cold and dark, and you want to stay under the duvet, or it’s like the majority of us, and not wanting to face work in general, notably the office. That’s what Monday Syndrome is.
However, instead of your routine of staring at spreadsheets and repeatedly scrolling, or pretending to talk to Daryl in the canteen about his Pokémon collection, the hero in this twin-stick shooter feels it’s better to go through each floor within the workplace and slap the shit out of everyone with an electric ruler. It’s ok – Janet from HR is unlikely to schedule a Zoom call with you as your co-workers are demons. Not figuratively.
Monday Syndrome is a rogue-like where each run provides some cash to boost your weaponry, or brings you a little closer to the requirements for unlocking a new weapon by reaching x level in one run, or accumulating x amount of cash. The weapon unlocks are permanent, though the upgrades (acquired through a modified photocopier that ‘rolls’ potential perks) only work per run. The same applies to XP as it relates to the run, as in most games of its class. Such as Lunar Tide, or Codex Mortis.
I played entirely on the Steam Deck, and based on the technical aspects, it was fine as not remotely demanding and very low-key. The controls weren’t as friendly; in fairness, the game isn’t promoted as a Steam Deck title. The issue was switching between the mouse cursor and actual controls through the joysticks. As you might surmise, the left stick moves your office worker while the right aims. At first, the ruler is 100% melee, yet the aiming works ok. You’re typically moving contintually however, as melee enemies are easy to circle, while those with projectiles can somehow manifest JFK magic bullets. Taking into account the damage you take, irrespective of perks, it can be annoying.
A quick and heavy attack is at your disposal, though, so don’t have too much of a difference between speed and damage. Additionally, there’s a dodge button, but I never used it, as by the time I unlocked the coffee pot weapon, I seldom got into fights. You see, with the coffee pot, you throw a bit of hot liquid into their face with a quick attack and through the heavy attack, it leaves a spot of hot coffee that takes them out in two hits. This can be achieved through walls, meaning I didn’t need to face them. Running around a floor killing enemies without any challenge and moving to the next floor to do the same is monotonous. More so because the bonuses make you overpowered early on.
In Monday Syndrome, you can boost your attack speed, power and movement early on. Again, these aren’t permanent, but with the coffee trick, you can rinse a floor in no time. A boss battle broke this up, though it was quite possibly the easiest boss I’ve ever encountered: a slightly agile sofa. What actually broke Monday Syndrome was not the repetition or lack of variety, but the bonuses. With each peek comes a penalty, and I noticed my fella was crying intermittently as if burnt, causing some missed frames in movement. This was soon followed by his shouting like that Cool-Aid bell-end, “Oh, yeah!”. Annoying, though bearable. Then I got the pop-ups that would effectively cover the screen until I closed them, and this didn’t stop even when levelling up and going to the next level. My solution was to kill myself and exit the game.
At the end of each run, you return to a hub area to unlock new weapons and use that photocopier roulette thing. Despite unlocking almost every single weapon after a few runs, the weapons weren’t available. I would have to click the left trigger to spawn the cursor and press the shoulder buttons to click, all the while my bloke was swinging about in real time. Touching the screen occasionally worked, but it was just so cumbersome, and with the whole monotony of the runs and penalties, such as those unsightly pop-ups (which weren’t remotely funny), I had no desire to continue. It’s a shame, as I was enjoying Monday Syndrome to begin with, then all the above made me long for Monday and being back at work. You can’t like ’em all.
