Gunslugs 2

Genre: Action-Platformer

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

Gunslugs 2 is an Action-Platformer released on PC, 3DS, and mobile devices in 2013 and ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2021. If you read my review of the first game, this review will seem pretty familiar to you, as the games are extremely similar.

The presentation in Gunslugs 2 makes use of some decent retro-style pixel art visuals that are improved over the first game, touting more of a 16-bit look while maintaining the first game’s 8-bit style. The music here is also improved, with this game’s chiptune soundtrack actually pretty catchy, with songs like the creatively-named Tune 1, Tune 2, and Tune 3. Joking aside, this is definitely better than the forgettable fare of the first game.

Unfortunately, the gameplay hasn’t noticeably improved the same way. Once again, there’s little nuance to the action beyond the ability to use crates as cover and fire through them by pressing against them. Beyond that, it’s just swarms of dumb enemies, with occasionally dumb bosses. I say “dumb” because the AI for these enemies follows extremely simple patterns and doesn’t really require much thought to take out.

And once again, players are both encouraged and discouraged to send volleys of bullets at both enemies and crates in ways that make it hard to fully invest in the gameplay. On the one hand, the swarms of enemies and the rewards that pop out of broken crates would seem to call for you to blast away, and the fast speed that pickups disappear would further seem to encourage a run-and-gun attitude… but limited supplies of ammo do act as a restraint against doing this, resulting in players feeling like they have some reason to hold back from fully partaking in the fast-paced action this game could deliver. The same goes for the cover system, which seems intended for a game whose enemies aren’t all idiots blindly charging into your bullets.

In the end, Gunslugs 2 is improved over the first game, but it is still ultimately a mediocre Action-Platformer, and while it’s not outright terrible, it does very little that isn’t done better in other games. Even for fans of the genre, you have plenty of better options on the Nintendo Switch.

tl;dr – Gunslugs 2, much like the first game, is an Action-Platformer with simple gameplay and a retro-style presentation that does little to set itself apart, has dumb enemy AI, and its basic design frustratingly both encourages and discourages fast-paced action. While this is an improvement over the first game, it’s not enough of an improvement to make this worth getting instead of countless better games in the genre on Nintendo Switch.

Grade: C

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