It's election season. How will you campaign for mayor? Will you promise better schools? Guarantee that you'll fix all those potholes? Perhaps you'll run on the more straightforward assurance that you will "shoot criminals in the face"? That last one might not be the most humane of political platforms, but it makes for an entertaining 2D action game.

In Not a Hero, you are a hired gun for a politician named Bunnylord, an anthropomorphic purple rabbit who has come from the future to, presumably, save the world. He is convinced that to prevent the disastrous future he has seen, he needs to be elected as mayor by the end of the month.

In theory, this would make you, his employee, a hero. But true to the title of the game, you do a lot of things that aren't very heroic. Sure, you might take down a drug lord and save some hostages, but along the way, you murder a lot of people. Bunnylord himself isn't a big believer of things like court trials. He has open disdain for religious people, hates children, and throws around a word that disrespects the mentally handicapped. It's odd to think that he's supposedly on a mission to save the world, considering that he doesn't seem like a very nice man (or rabbit ... whatever).

The violence in Not a Hero might be disturbing if it weren't for the absurdity wrapped around it.

It's to the gameplay’s credit that I usually wanted to get through the story beats quickly and jump into the next mission. Each of the game's 21 levels (24 if you count a few secret ones) are short and relatively straightforward--kill enemies, maybe collect a few things, find the exit--but each stage's layout is well-designed, often offering a few different paths to the goal (maybe, for example, you crash through a window instead of entering a room from the door on the opposite side). A few different enemy types also help mix things up because several of the bad guys you come across are immune to certain attacks, like slide tackles. Occasionally, the longer levels in the game can be frustrating thanks to enemies that have a tendency to kill you in one hit (forcing you to go back to the beginning), but their size and complexity is still welcome.

The plain "kill all enemies" mission structure is also broken up with extra challenges to complete in each level, such as ... well, "kill all enemies." Other than that, you might be asked to find a hidden item, defeat a certain number of enemies without getting hit, or complete a level without using a certain number of bullets. You can reach the game's credits without completing any of these objectives, but they usually add challenge and variety to what might otherwise be a bland mission.

If you don't try to complete all these challenges, you can easily blast your way through Not a Hero in a handful of hours, unlocking most or all of the characters along the way. You can extend your time in the game by completing levels with all the different characters, but the game doesn't do a good job of incentivizing you to do so. Still, there's a lot of fun to be had in this explosive quest for political domination. Not a Hero's humor may not always hit the mark, but the action makes up for it.