When comparing Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition vs Beat Cop, the Slant community recommends Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition for most people. In the question“What are the best indie games on Steam?” Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition is ranked 29th while Beat Cop is ranked 35th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Amazing art and atmosphere
Pro Great soundtrack
Very nicely made music.
Pro Great Metroidvania gameplay
Pro Fantastic soundtrack
Pro Enjoyable gameplay
The controls are intuitive, the difficulty feels just right, the boss encounters are fun, there's a really nice upgrade system, and there are tons of secrets to be found. As a result, Ori and the Blind Forest is an enjoyable experience.
Pro Compelling puzzle design
Pro Available DRM-Free
It took a while, but Ori did eventually release DRM-Free via GOG.
Pro Amazing skills
Amazing upgradeable skill set.
Pro Deals with relevant issues
Even if it's set 30 years ago, Beat Cop manages to make a statement about issues relevant today. Problems like race, police brutality, and corruption are dealt with with a good dose of satire and introspection. It throws the player into a hostile environment and asks them to make important decisions under extremely high pressure and difficulty where doing something immoral is often seen as the simplest and fastest way of reaching your goals.
The quota-based system is reminiscent of the statistics-based systems many countries employ to measure a cop's performance. This blurs the line between moral and immoral choices. Do you choose to take the high road? Or do you make an immoral choice in order to reach your goals faster? This way, Beat Cop shines a light on the many difficulties policemen have to address every day and the game does so while remaining impartial and without throwing needless accusations around.
Pro Players are required to make meaningful decisions that have meaningful consequences
In order to progress in the game, players have to make a variety of difficult decisions. For example, accepting a bribe may improve your relations with the Mafia but reduce your overall reputation with your fellow police officers. You can choose to play a good cop that plays by the rules, but it's not easy. You can issue tickets even for cars that are not breaking any laws, but those tickets count towards your daily ticket quota. Issuing them may have long-term consequences.
In order to reach their daily goals, the player must make the choice they think will get them closer to it. Whether that is the moral choice or not is entirely up to the player themselves. The right choice will reward the player, the wrong choice however can greatly penalize and set them back.
Pro Perfectly captures the feel of classic cop shows and movies
Beat Cop successfully captures the general feel of '80s shows and movies about cops. It's got all the stereotypes people find and enjoy in those shows and movies. All the cliches make it seem like it's straight out of Miami Vice.
Cons
Con Non-combat focused
The game is more about puzzle solving and exploration than combat. Unlike traditional Zelda/Metroidvania games.
Con Boring combat system
The combat system is kinda boring and repetitive. It's just about mashing buttons.
Con Really short
I managed to finish the game with nearly everything unlocked and most secrets in a little over 5 hours, on my first playthrough. It's not a game that you can sink a lot of time into.
Con In-game time management could have been handled a bit better
Five minutes in-game are equivalent to a couple of real-world seconds. This makes time go awfully quickly in Beat Cop. The idea is that time needs to go quickly in order for the player to strategize and think hard about which choices they will make during a single day. This fact is further emphasized by NPCs repeating again and again that you will not be able to complete all of your tasks. The problem is that it's perfectly possible to complete all given tasks in even such a small timeframe.
You have a daily minimum number of tickets you have to write, if you reach double of your daily quota the game will reward you for that. But because in-game time management is poor, it's quite easy to even quadruple your daily quota which seems to not have been predicted by the game creators since the game gives no rewards whatsoever for reaching more than double your ticket quota.