Justice Sucks: Tactical Vacuum Action Review

In the movie Furious 7, the great Dominic Toretto once said, “The most important thing in life will always be family.” This seems to have resonated with Samurai Punk when creating their stealth-based action game, Justice Sucks: Tactical Vacuum Action. Oh, and 90’s TV shows, too apparently.

Developer: Samurai Punk
Publisher: TinyBuild
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PS5, Xbox Series
Release Date: September 8th, 2022

The Next Episode of Justice Sucks Starts Now!

If you’ve ever fantasized about making your Roomba a member of your family, well Justice Sucks is offering you that experience. By placing you in the wheels of a sentient vacuum named Dusty McClean. Your day to day life consists of mingling with the family, maintaining a clean space, and brutally murdering anyone who dares threaten your home.

However, Family Corp, the company that produces your line of vacuums, catches wind of your sentience. Thinking your family has tampered with their product, they take them hostage and throw you straight into the TV. However, your consciousness lives on inside of the TV. After being confronted by your inner spirit, you must fight through a series of TV shows to escape the TV and rescue your family.

Sounds wild, right? Well, it is, and it’s one of the things that’s so charming about the game’s cartoonishly goofy story. There are minimal cutscenes and dialog, but what’s there is fun and entertaining. The idea that my old roomba could have been a family friend and brutal killer is both funny and terrifying.

Kill and Clean Until There Is Nothing Left

Justice Sucks is a stealth-based action game where players navigate maze-like levels from a top-down perspective. Using the environments around them, it’s up to them to stop the criminal element that’s invading your space. Objectives vary between things like defending valuables, rescuing civilians, defusing bombs, or simply eliminating everyone.

It’s up to you how you approach those objectives through a handful of scenarios across multiple TV shows. Dusty will vacuum his way through TV shows involving a CyberCruise, nightclub, and eventually FamilyCorps own headquarters. Each world offers its own set of challenges for Dusty to overcome, and some of them are required to be completed. Level progression is gated until Dusty can unlock the power level necessary to access them.

Thankfully, the gameplay is fun enough that you more than likely won’t notice the game stopping your progression. It always feels fun to navigate the levels and take out bad guys. Each level also offers its own uniqueness to the game. For instance, during the nightclub level, Dusty can weaponize the dance floor. Players will appreciate the many ways they can experiment with taking out intruders.

Tactical Vacuum Action

While stealth isn’t necessarily always required, it is the best way to do things. Dusty is an efficient little scamp who is capable of quite a bit of destruction. He can hack objects, suck up household objects to lob at enemies, and access a pool of perks and skills for devastating abilities.

One fun detail is that elements can be combined. Hacking into a sprinkler system to cover an area with water will soak enemies caught inside. Wet enemies can then be shocked or frozen in a solid block of ice.

Depending on how you performed while playing through the scenario, you get graded on a job well done. Efficiently eliminating enemies without being spotted will earn you the most points. What tops off your points and earns you the highest ranking possible, however, is how well you cleaned up the mess left behind.

By disposing of bodies and cleaning up pools of blood, you earn bonus points. It’s one of the game’s most charming aspects. You are a vacuum after all, and your primary function is to clean. So, make sure to crunch up every corpse and clean up every drop of blood.

Justice Sucks Feels like a Goofy 90’s Cartoon

As previously stated, Justice Sucks is set in a universe inspired by 90’s television, and it’s easy to spot. The game just feels like a 90’s cartoon. There’s no voice acting, and when we do see Dusty’s family being questioned by FamilyCorp, pictures are pointed to as the characters grunt, scream, and squeal.

When consuming objects and bodies, Dusty inflates for a brief second. Corpses are broken down and ground up with cartoon sound effects. Dusty’s fighting spirit is displayed as if he were drawn straight out of a Japanese anime. He’s wildly muscular and sports Dusty as his head and face, which only increases the absurdity and charm of the game.

*Slaps Dusty’s Hood* You Can Fit So Many Corpses In Here!

Justice Sucks: Tactical Vaccuum Action is one of the most absurdly adorable and unexpectedly violent games I’ve had the pleasure of playing this year. If it wasn’t for the copious amounts of blood, it could almost be a Saturday morning cartoon. Instead, it’s definitely something I would have watched in my teenage years on Adult Swim.

Samurai Punk definitely manages to stick a nostalgic landing, whether it’s in the 90’s stylings of its TV settings or cartoon vibes it gives off. They’ve truly crafted something unique amongst the stealth genre as well. If you’re looking to go on a wacky adventure, as a murderous vacuum trying to save its family, then Justice Sucks is for you.

Review Disclosure Statement: Justice Sucks: Tactical Vacuum Action was provided to us by Samurai Punk & TinyBuild for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more info. 

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