I think it’s safe to say that 2021’s “Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion” caught everyone by surprise by blending competent 2D Zelda-like gameplay with quirky, plant-based humor and a pleasant visual style. I enjoyed it quite a bit and was looking forward to its sequel. And I was caught by surprise yet again, because it turned out that the devs decided to switch the genre from an old-school adventure game to a roguelite mixed with bullet hell. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work as well as the original.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a fan of roguelites, and this is no exception. Running over and over through the same couple of areas and mowing down the same enemies gets old really quick for me, and Turnip Boy doesn’t provide enough scope or variety to make traversing through the map a truly enjoyable experience. Most of my time playing the game was searching for NPCs that I had an outstanding quest with - there are a lot of characters you can help throughout the 5 hours or so that it takes to finish the story. Honestly, I mostly walked aimlessly searching for an NPC whose location I had completely forgotten (the map is utterly useless) or simply because I had confused one NPC with another. This can be frustrating not only because there is no good way to memorize this (and some NPCs only show up in rooms that spawn at random, so you can be looking for a guy and never stumble upon him simply because his room didn’t spawn for this particular run), but also because you’re always under a time constraint. At one point I found myself with a long list of NPCs to interact with, a map that doesn’t help at all in finding them and a thought “yeah, I don’t remember where any of those characters are”.
Perhaps this problem is exacerbated by the writing. The trademark quirkiness is still there and some NPCs’ lines should make you smile, but either the novelty factor has worn off or the writing simply isn’t as sharp because I found the NPCs in “Tax Evasion” funnier, more memorable and their plotlines easier to follow than the ones in “Robs a Bank”.
Overall, I enjoyed the gunplay - I think there is a good selection of weapons available (a lot of them, obviously, are very comedic in nature) and they’re fun to use, but the fact that you can’t really store them conveniently (there’s one particular room where you can keep them for your next run, but it’s an extremely tedious mechanic) and that the only weapons that you have permanent access to in your hub are the most standard shotgun/rifle/bazooka spoils the fun of trying out new weapons.
Two other issues I’d like to mention are underwhelming boss fights (they’re all very similar and at the very end you have to repeat them all in one go, which is a chore) and the fact that about halfway through the game you find a way to earn tons of cash quickly and run out of things you can spend them on. I think the upgrade system could’ve been expanded to account for that.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a fan of roguelites, and this is no exception. Running over and over through the same couple of areas and mowing down the same enemies gets old really quick for me, and Turnip Boy doesn’t provide enough scope or variety to make traversing through the map a truly enjoyable experience. Most of my time playing the game was searching for NPCs that I had an outstanding quest with - there are a lot of characters you can help throughout the 5 hours or so that it takes to finish the story. Honestly, I mostly walked aimlessly searching for an NPC whose location I had completely forgotten (the map is utterly useless) or simply because I had confused one NPC with another. This can be frustrating not only because there is no good way to memorize this (and some NPCs only show up in rooms that spawn at random, so you can be looking for a guy and never stumble upon him simply because his room didn’t spawn for this particular run), but also because you’re always under a time constraint. At one point I found myself with a long list of NPCs to interact with, a map that doesn’t help at all in finding them and a thought “yeah, I don’t remember where any of those characters are”.
Perhaps this problem is exacerbated by the writing. The trademark quirkiness is still there and some NPCs’ lines should make you smile, but either the novelty factor has worn off or the writing simply isn’t as sharp because I found the NPCs in “Tax Evasion” funnier, more memorable and their plotlines easier to follow than the ones in “Robs a Bank”.
Overall, I enjoyed the gunplay - I think there is a good selection of weapons available (a lot of them, obviously, are very comedic in nature) and they’re fun to use, but the fact that you can’t really store them conveniently (there’s one particular room where you can keep them for your next run, but it’s an extremely tedious mechanic) and that the only weapons that you have permanent access to in your hub are the most standard shotgun/rifle/bazooka spoils the fun of trying out new weapons.
Two other issues I’d like to mention are underwhelming boss fights (they’re all very similar and at the very end you have to repeat them all in one go, which is a chore) and the fact that about halfway through the game you find a way to earn tons of cash quickly and run out of things you can spend them on. I think the upgrade system could’ve been expanded to account for that.