Gunborg: Dark Matters

Genre: Action-Platformer / 2-Stick Shooter

Players: 1

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Review:

Gunborg is an Action-Platformer with 2-Stick Shooter elements released on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2022. This game has players controlling a cyborg woman (the titular “gunborg”) fighting her way through a spaceship full of hostile enemies.

The presentation in Gunborg is good, featuring 2D colors with vibrant visuals and some decent animation, backed by a solid techno-style soundtrack with catchy tunes like First Contact and Relentless.

However, the real star here is definitely the gameplay, with Gunborg featuring a solid mix of challenging but well-crafted Action-Platformer gameplay and some 2-Stick Shooter mechanics. Players have a triple-jump, a wall-jump, a unidirectional deflector shield they can use for short periods of time, and an energy sword, as well as the ability to pick up enemy weapons. It’s a good mix of abilities that manages to have players feel powerful while also still providing a challenge if they miss a step while assaulted by enemies or managing a tricky jump through dangerous obstacles.

Good level design, good boss design, a decent amount of variety… really, this is a game that largely hits all the marks. If I had to point to one flaw here, I can’t help but feel like this game would be improved even more by a dash or even air-dash ability, giving players the chance to close the distance to enemies. And I suppose technically this game does very little that’s truly new. However, these are largely just nitpicks – the gameplay is pretty solid as-is.

There’s not really much more to say about Gunborg. This is just an all-around solid Action-Platformer. It may not do anything truly groundbreaking within the genre, but everything it does do, it seems to do quite well. If you’re a fan of this sort of game, this is definitely a game worth picking up.

tl;dr – Gunborg is an Action-Platformer with 2-Stick Shooter elements that has players fighting through hordes of enemies and avoiding dangerous traps in a hostile spaceship. While this game doesn’t break any new ground for the genre, it is a very good entry in the genre, and one that fans of Action-Platformers should strongly consider getting.

Grade: B+

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