CICADAMATA" Review: A Stunning $10 Movement Shooter

A stunning movement shooter that turns every level into a route to master

9/10

Reviewed on: PC via Steam

CICADAMATA” is stunningly beautiful and one of the best movement-shooters I’ve played in years.

Just like people used to compare every shooter game to DOOM, it would be easy to make comparisons to ULTRAKILL for every movement-shooter, especially since it can give a good baseline for others who’ve played or seen the game.

But on paper, CICADAMATA” seems pretty standard for a movement-shooter: you get three jumps, a dash, a slam, and a shotgun in a series of levels to run around in to build up points doing as the game commands: Tear flesh from bone. But CICADAMATA” is so much more than just a good movement shooter.

CICADAMATA” Announce Trailer

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Starstruck By The Light

For a little background, you play as a FAWN-A2, given the callsign White Rabbit. Due to events in your previous life, you were chosen to enlist for the CICADA program, and you are given a MATA as part of your initiation, which is your seemingly sentient shotgun called Joyeuse. Everything in the game is a little enigmatic, helped with a few allusions to Alice in Wonderland, which is obvious with the character’s callsign, and the line the announcer gives you: “Obligations no longer bind you. This is who you are now. Proceed. Tear flesh from bone.”

You are then thrust into a world that seems to take visual inspiration from the extraction shooter MARATHON, leaning into a low-poly graphic realism, which is a mouthful to say out loud but is stunning to run around in-game, and it even infiltrates the start menu and options; everything has a visual and narrative cohesion that adds to the elusivity to this game, drawing me in more and more, especially as I progress through the levels.

CICADAMATA gameplay showing a defeated enemy beside a glowing cyan Core in a geometric combat arena — CICADAMATA” uses its stark geometry, bright colors, and cryptic presentation to make even small arenas feel distinctive.

With story being inferred from terminals scattered around the levels, with secret voice lines from your shotgun, and voice clips you have to hear at the start of some levels, that beginning statement of, “this is who you are now,” starts to feel more threatening, and sometimes more kind.

I cannot give the game’s developers credit enough for how much they added in the game to create a story that doesn’t have to be told at you, but something you experience. Even with the ending scene of the game that gives you an actual look at who FAWN-A2 was when they were still Fawn, it leaves it up to the player to piece together what is actually going on.

Also, I hope the pun in the title makes a little more sense since the main character’s name is “Fawn.”

Zoned In

Beyond the amazing visual narrative hybrid the game creates, CICADAMATA” is stupidly fun.

This game revolves around a point system not too dissimilar to ULTRAKILL’s, where damaging and killing enemies gives you points, but with only a single shotgun and a few movement abilities, you would think that it wouldn’t be as exciting with such a limited tool set.

But FAWN-A2 is a weapon herself; dashing into enemies kills them and refreshes your dash, and slamming the ground launches enemies into the air, which you can use to launch yourself higher into the air by dashing into them, and Joyeuse is given purpose with enemies you can shoot to explode other enemies, or one enemy that, when you shoot, teleports you to its location.

CICADAMATA gameplay showing FAWN-A2 aiming Joyeuse at an enemy while preparing a charged shot — Joyeuse is more than a standard shotgun, with abilities that become increasingly important as CICADAMATA” opens up.

These tools at your disposal turn levels into a sort of puzzle where my first run through is usually finding a route where I can chain enemies in order to fly around the level at breakneck speed in order to beat my previous best time.

CICADAMATA first-person gameplay showing FAWN-A2 moving rapidly through a bright green and yellow combat arena — Once the movement systems click, stages become high-speed routes built around chaining enemies, dashes, and momentum.

It really is a testament to the developers again that with a small enemy pool, they can design such intricate levels, sometimes large enough that I got lost a few times, but with enough trial and error, you can master them to achieve those diamond-ranked times.

Oh yeah, each level has different ranks to achieve, with silver, gold, and diamond rankings available to those who clear the level the fastest while achieving the most points from enemies. And this encourages you to make the most of Zone time, an ability that activates when you get enough points and multiplies the points you’re earning while in Zone time. You also extend your Zone time by getting more points, so when you are locked in and you’re chaining your dashes into enemies, making the most of your abilities, you enter a flow state that is awarded by being Zoned.

This game truly clicked for me when I learned the shotgun had a secondary railgun ability that you can use for long-range kills. When I finally used it to kill the enemies that teleport you, the game opened my eyes to how I could perfect my play, which is exactly what I want from a game like this.

Down the Rabbit Hole, Final Thoughts

For me, the game is nearly perfect, especially for its $8.99 launch price; this game delivers everything you’d want in a game. One of the only criticisms I can give the game is that I want more. The story and the gameplay all feel like they’re leading up to something more.

When you first boot up the game, it gives you two files to choose from: CICADA.ONR and ANGEL.ONR, but even after finishing the game and slowly getting through the post-game content, you still cannot access the ANGEL.ONR file. Whether this is a tease to a new game or something I haven’t discovered yet, I hunger for more from CICADAMATA” because it’s that good.

With all of its mystique in the world, and how good it feels to play, with the added benefit that it launched at $8.99, I have to give this game a 9/10, and I feel a lot of people would love this game.

Editor’s note: The $8.99 price referenced by Jake was the game’s 10% introductory launch discount. The standard US price is $9.99.

CICADAMATA”

Release: August 21, 2026

Genre: Action, Indie, First-Person Shooter, 3D Platformer

Developer / Publisher: ✿ flowergarden

Platforms: PC — Steam

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