The Textorcist: The Story of Ray Bibbia

What it is

The Textorcist casts players as Ray Bibbia, a hard-boiled private exorcist who battles demonic bosses through a genuinely unusual dual-input system: dodging dense bullet-hell projectile patterns with one hand on the movement keys while typing exorcism verses — English phrases and, later, actual Latin prayers — with the other to damage enemies. Developed by Morbidware and published by Headup, it released on 14 February 2019 at NZD 21.99, wrapped in a stylish, deliberately campy B-movie horror aesthetic with a "mid-90s anime plot," in one reviewer's words.

Its review corpus, 664 in English, sits at a strong Very Positive 82.7% (549 to 115), and reading through it in depth reveals a game whose core concept is genuinely novel enough to earn its own place in the genre — while also generating real, specific disagreement about whether that concept actually succeeds as gameplay.

A concept that surprises even confident typists

This corpus consistently frames the game's central hook with real enthusiasm and, often, genuine surprise at its difficulty. "It's terrific. It's hard as heck," writes one reviewer, describing the experience of moving with one hand and typing with the other as something that "might even make it harder" for good typists specifically, since it breaks the usual two-handed typing rhythm. A separate reviewer states this more starkly: "I say this as a person who types 125 WPM and has never broken a sweat playing a typing game before... it breaks my brain," describing genuinely hitting a difficulty wall for the first time in years. Another reviewer sums up the appeal bluntly: "no one asked for this game. No one needed a typing game that combines bullet-hell mechanics, a god-awful mid-90's anime plot, and actual Latin. But, damn. It's fun as hell."

A real, detailed case that the dual-input concept doesn't work

Set against that enthusiasm, a substantial and specific critical thread argues the fusion at the game's core is fundamentally at odds with itself. "Bullet hell shmups are too high octane to involve dodging AND typing, making Textorcist more frustrating than fun," writes one detailed reviewer, noting the early levels work fine before the endgame's faster patterns break the balance entirely. Another reviewer, a proficient touch typist, makes a specific, counterintuitive point: "if you're a proficient touch typist, you'll actually probably have an even harder time with the game" than someone who hunts and pecks, because of how awkwardly the shift-key movement scheme interacts with typing muscle memory. A separate reviewer states plainly: "it's a good concept but there just isn't a good way to have a fluid movement scheme mixed in with the typing combat. Too annoying trying to manage both at the same time." That's a specific, mechanically grounded critique distinct from ordinary "this game is too hard" complaints — several critics here explicitly separate the concept's novelty from its actual moment-to-moment execution.

Real, specific technical problems

Beyond the core-design debate, this corpus documents concrete technical issues worth flagging directly. "Every time the game is redownloaded, the save files disappear," writes one detailed reviewer, calling this "such a disaster due to it's difficulty" given how much progress a single playthrough represents. A separate, more pointed review states: "game-breaking bugs that have not been fixed over a year after release? That's pretty bad," arguing that a punishing, precision-based game carries a higher obligation for technical stability than a more forgiving one. A third reviewer raises a narrower but genuinely frustrating issue: being forced to sit through "tedious interactive cutscenes EVERY TIME you want to challenge a boss," with no way to skip straight to a retry after the first viewing.

The Latin-text fairness debate

A specific, recurring complaint concerns the game's use of actual Latin prayers as typing targets for non-native English speakers. "Extremely hard if you're non-native (in particular if you rarely type in latin alphabet)," writes one reviewer, while another states the Latin content specifically "made me stop," arguing that longer or more familiar English words would have preserved the challenge without adding an additional, arguably unintended language barrier. That's a fair, specific point distinct from the broader difficulty debate — the game's core challenge is clearly by design, but the added friction from unfamiliar Latin vocabulary lands differently depending on a player's own linguistic background in a way the difficulty curve doesn't fully account for.

What the achievement data confirms about the difficulty

The Textorcist's achievement curve is among the steepest this lane has documented: 72.2% for defeating the first boss, dropping to 41.1% by the third, and falling into single digits by the seventh boss and beyond. Hardcore-difficulty and full-completion achievements sit at 1-2% across the board. That's a genuinely brutal attrition curve, strongly corroborating both the "even fast typists struggle" praise and the "the back half breaks the concept" criticism — very few players who start this game see it through to the end, regardless of which side of the design debate they land on.

Verdict

The Textorcist delivers something genuinely rare: a fully realized, stylish fusion of two genres that have never been combined this way before, and its difficulty is real rather than manufactured. Whether that fusion is actually fun rather than merely difficult remains a fair, unresolved question within its own fanbase, and real technical bugs — particularly reported save-file loss — add unnecessary risk to an already unforgiving experience. Recommended for confident typists specifically seeking a genuine challenge unlike anything else in the genre; approach with caution otherwise.