fun and silly, wish there was less grinding
ratiaram
This game clearly suffered from feature creep.
I've had this game on my wishlist for about two years, because its artstyle and the promise of coop was appealing. But sadly, this game was created without focus.
It could have doubled down on the combat, the crafting, the progression or the world, but it did not decide and did a littlebit of everything, making none of these choices suffice for a game.
My personal fix for this game would have been the following: Make the home base completely static like in Bastion or Hades, visually pleasing and filled to the brim with the various progression systems. Then focus the rest of the work on the gunplay, the game is called "Wizard with a Gun" after all and sadly, you do not feel like a teleporting, gun-slinging maveric in the game.
Then it could have been a great 8 hour experience. Now it's been a 16 hour grindy and janky slog.
I've had this game on my wishlist for about two years, because its artstyle and the promise of coop was appealing. But sadly, this game was created without focus.
It could have doubled down on the combat, the crafting, the progression or the world, but it did not decide and did a littlebit of everything, making none of these choices suffice for a game.
My personal fix for this game would have been the following: Make the home base completely static like in Bastion or Hades, visually pleasing and filled to the brim with the various progression systems. Then focus the rest of the work on the gunplay, the game is called "Wizard with a Gun" after all and sadly, you do not feel like a teleporting, gun-slinging maveric in the game.
Then it could have been a great 8 hour experience. Now it's been a 16 hour grindy and janky slog.
Extremely repetitive gameplay loop and very simplistic gameplay. The bullet variety doesn't matter when a single bullet type can easily carry you through the entire game and many bullet types are just plain bad. (Which makes the whole wizardry and magic thing very barebones), the gun types are very lackluster, the enemies all have very similar, repetitive patterns, the areas all have one gimmick that separates them that can mostly be ignored. Inventory management is extremely annoying and inconvenient. The time limit every time you go out into the main world feels annoying at the beginning of the game and does not feel like it exists at all later on. Very repetitive combat where you fight every single enemy in the same way.
The soundtrack kicks ass though and it's kinda fun with friends in co-op in small bursts.
Expected way more from a game that has the name "Wizard with a Gun", and with it's awesome animated trailers, but ended up being mostly dissapointing
Also the ending is the most anticlimactic ending i have ever seen in a game and it plain fucking sucks ass lol. me and a friend were in total disbelief that that was how the game ended.
The soundtrack kicks ass though and it's kinda fun with friends in co-op in small bursts.
Expected way more from a game that has the name "Wizard with a Gun", and with it's awesome animated trailers, but ended up being mostly dissapointing
Also the ending is the most anticlimactic ending i have ever seen in a game and it plain fucking sucks ass lol. me and a friend were in total disbelief that that was how the game ended.
No le quiero quitar mérito a sus pequeños encantos pero es un juego que, primero, recuerda en muchos sentidos a otros que hacen cosas parecidas pero mucho mejor —siendo Hades el ejemplo más evidente—, y segundo, creo que no sale beneficiado del contraste entre las partidas contrarreloj y ese ritmo mohíno que lleva por bandera. Tampoco pido que sea un Nuclear Throne de la vida, aquí los pesos son diferentes y se busca otra cosa a nivel de progresión, pero me ha acabado perdiendo por lo poco estimulante que me resultaba volver a intentarlo otra vez... Y eso, a las apenas tres horas que le he echado, ha sido una señal lo suficientemente esclarecedora como para bajarme del barco.
eh
Full video review: https://youtu.be/aCOWXtNv4nk
A wizard with spells is cool, but a wizard with a gun that also uses spells might just be even cooler.
Gameplay
Wizard with a Gun is a sandbox roguelike shooter where you turn back time to travel to randomly generated biomes to hunt down enemies, gather crafting materials, and find all sorts of neat loot. The core game loop here is very defined. Each time you turn back time, a new timer starts, counting down until chaos invades the world you just generated. So you need to get all your gathering and hunting done in that short time, lest you be overrun by powerful creatures all resembling some sort of pink blob. Or if you are feeling lucky, you can stay through that chaos and farm those pink blobs for material to make even better items back at base.
It’s back at that base that you’ll find the bulk of the game’s crafting mechanics. There’s simple crafting you can do on the fly, but also research tables, tons of different ammunition types, armor upgrades, elemental upgrades, and a full slate of objects, walls, and flooring to build if you’re into the decoration side of things. This was one of my favorite parts of the experience, just going down these research trees and trying out new weapon combinations.
Just casually exploring usually gave me more than enough material for general crafting, it was only when I wanted something super specific that I would have to generate an entire level for it. I feel like a lot of games reliant on crafting mechanics like this fall victim to slower pacing as a result, but that is not the feeling I had here. Wizard with a Gun is fast and satisfying without sacrificing complexity.
Of course this wouldn’t work without good combat, another area the game does a great job in. Hits have feedback, there’s a good amount of variety with the weapon choices, and as mentioned previously, the sheer amount of customization possibilities make it very fun to play around with.
Level Design
The game could use some improvement in the area of its level design and random generation. It’s kinda basic and lacks the unique structures, enemies, and other random events that really sell a good roguelike. As such, the actual act of exploring isn’t quite as good as it could have been, even if I still had a good time with it.
Bosses & Quests
The bosses have only a few attacks, aren’t all that difficult, and really aren’t that satisfying to beat. The quest system felt like it was implemented just to give a general direction when it could have been so much more. The game has some lore, it just isn’t explored to the extent that I would have liked. It’s not outright bad, just kinda basic and disappointing in comparison to the rest of the experience.
Graphics & Music
Graphically, the game looks great. It’s not anything groundbreaking, but I liked the stylized, darker aesthetic with its heavy use of shading and outlining. This, combined with the lighting, makes for a very cool overall look, one that’s even better in motion as the animations are just as good. The music is less notable, but still fitting for the overall style the game goes for.
Performance
I had no issues playing at 4k 144fps on my 3080 Ti. There aren’t really any settings to change outside of resolution, but it’s not a difficult game to run by any means so that likely won’t pose an issue for most. Controls are also good. I spent my entire playtime using just keyboard and mouse and didn’t feel the need to change any bindings.
Overall
Wizard with a Gun is fast and satisfying without sacrificing complexity, the ideal formula for an action roguelike. It offers up some clean combat, tons of different weapon and ammo possibilities, and a crafting system that doesn’t feel intrusive or tacked on in any way. It’s a fairly solid recommendation for fans of the genre, even if it does struggle with its levels and overall quest system. Still, I had fun with it and would recommend it.
A wizard with spells is cool, but a wizard with a gun that also uses spells might just be even cooler.
Gameplay
Wizard with a Gun is a sandbox roguelike shooter where you turn back time to travel to randomly generated biomes to hunt down enemies, gather crafting materials, and find all sorts of neat loot. The core game loop here is very defined. Each time you turn back time, a new timer starts, counting down until chaos invades the world you just generated. So you need to get all your gathering and hunting done in that short time, lest you be overrun by powerful creatures all resembling some sort of pink blob. Or if you are feeling lucky, you can stay through that chaos and farm those pink blobs for material to make even better items back at base.
It’s back at that base that you’ll find the bulk of the game’s crafting mechanics. There’s simple crafting you can do on the fly, but also research tables, tons of different ammunition types, armor upgrades, elemental upgrades, and a full slate of objects, walls, and flooring to build if you’re into the decoration side of things. This was one of my favorite parts of the experience, just going down these research trees and trying out new weapon combinations.
Just casually exploring usually gave me more than enough material for general crafting, it was only when I wanted something super specific that I would have to generate an entire level for it. I feel like a lot of games reliant on crafting mechanics like this fall victim to slower pacing as a result, but that is not the feeling I had here. Wizard with a Gun is fast and satisfying without sacrificing complexity.
Of course this wouldn’t work without good combat, another area the game does a great job in. Hits have feedback, there’s a good amount of variety with the weapon choices, and as mentioned previously, the sheer amount of customization possibilities make it very fun to play around with.
Level Design
The game could use some improvement in the area of its level design and random generation. It’s kinda basic and lacks the unique structures, enemies, and other random events that really sell a good roguelike. As such, the actual act of exploring isn’t quite as good as it could have been, even if I still had a good time with it.
Bosses & Quests
The bosses have only a few attacks, aren’t all that difficult, and really aren’t that satisfying to beat. The quest system felt like it was implemented just to give a general direction when it could have been so much more. The game has some lore, it just isn’t explored to the extent that I would have liked. It’s not outright bad, just kinda basic and disappointing in comparison to the rest of the experience.
Graphics & Music
Graphically, the game looks great. It’s not anything groundbreaking, but I liked the stylized, darker aesthetic with its heavy use of shading and outlining. This, combined with the lighting, makes for a very cool overall look, one that’s even better in motion as the animations are just as good. The music is less notable, but still fitting for the overall style the game goes for.
Performance
I had no issues playing at 4k 144fps on my 3080 Ti. There aren’t really any settings to change outside of resolution, but it’s not a difficult game to run by any means so that likely won’t pose an issue for most. Controls are also good. I spent my entire playtime using just keyboard and mouse and didn’t feel the need to change any bindings.
Overall
Wizard with a Gun is fast and satisfying without sacrificing complexity, the ideal formula for an action roguelike. It offers up some clean combat, tons of different weapon and ammo possibilities, and a crafting system that doesn’t feel intrusive or tacked on in any way. It’s a fairly solid recommendation for fans of the genre, even if it does struggle with its levels and overall quest system. Still, I had fun with it and would recommend it.
It meshes survival games like don’t starve with roguelites similar to cult of the lamb with a fun premise that makes me want to play it even more
A little too easy for me and my boyfriend, maybe it's because we took all the right choices when upgrading some bullets. It took us around 15h hours to complete the whole game, and the final boss was easier than the fourth one, for example, after all the hype we were building up, it was a little disappointing. The music and the artstyle are pretty unique, but it lacks a lot of content for 25 bucks, if we had played every day, it would've been finished in less than a week, but we love to take it easy. Besides that, I really had fun, the plague doctor was my go-to costume. Hope it gets an upgrade it the future, because it's necessary at it's finest, not a paid DLC, but a BIG upgrade.
S'okay. Might return to it.
No entiendo muy bien por qué de tanto odio a este juego; entiendo y veo que le falta contenido. Se nota que le falta poner 4 jugadores y no solo 2, que le falta hacer el final un poco más espectacular... Pero las balas se hacen muy diferentes, hay balas muy raras como las cinéticas o balas que permiten hacerte un ejército. Hay variedad y puedes construirte la base como quieras. Sigues pudiendo jugar al juego con alguien, e ir cada uno a una munición diferente. Los bosses (antes del final) son variados y son espectaculares a su modo. Con un par de actualizaciones, lo subiría a 4 estrellas sin dudar, de por si ya lo dudo. No tiene por qué ser un juego extremadamente largo, tampoco. Tiene potencial; ojalá no lo dejen abandonado porque puede ser una bestia
I don't think I've ever been more disappointed going from title to gameplay than with a game called WIZARD WITH A GUN turning out to be a slow-paced Don't Starve-styled exploration survival base builder
weak gameplay loop, monotonous progression, plain and boring combat with little to no challenge