Some roguelikes let you fight with preset weapons, but a small sub-genre lets you invent your own, turning every run into a playground of spells and chaos. Noita is a great example, letting you play with the world’s physics by freely mixing and matching effects. Magicraft does something similar, but with a more traditional roguelike viewpoint, and becomes pure chaos once a run really gets going. Both demand sharp reactions, but Arcane Trigger approaches things a little differently.

Arcane Trigger has you playing as an arcane gunslinger, combining different bullet types and spells to unleash massive chains of firepower against a strange realm encroaching on your own. It begins simply, as most roguelikes do, but escalates very quickly, eventually letting you fire dragon eggs and even meteors. The key difference is that everything here is turn-based.

In fact, all you really need to do is click the fire button. You don’t need to move at all, just pull the trigger. That doesn’t mean there’s no depth, though. The order of your bullets matters, as do your upgrade choices. You’ll be aiming to collect three of a kind to fuse bullets together, lean into specific elemental synergies, or ban certain bullets entirely so you can focus on a single strength. When it comes to combat execution, however, it’s still just one button.

As a result, this is a roguelike where your reactions don’t need to be constantly tested. Instead, you’re free to take your time crafting and refining your attacks. As you progress, you’ll develop a stronger understanding of how different builds work, and you’ll also unlock other gunslingers to experiment with. It’s an incredibly easy game to play, but a difficult one to master, and it’s refreshing to experience a roguelike that embraces a slower pace for once.

The post Arcane Trigger Mini-Review: Big Spells, One Button appeared first on Green Man Gaming Blog.

Death Howl is ambitious simply for the two genres it tries to fuse. Deckbuilders are almost always roguelikes, and Soulslikes are almost always action-heavy. The idea that you could blend these systems in a way that not only makes sense but actually feels good to play seems almost absurd. Yet Death Howl pulls it off, all while telling a moving, heart-wrenching story about grief.

You play as a mother who has lost her son and refuses to be consumed by the despair threatening to overwhelm her. Instead, she steps into the spirit world to search for him and bring him home. The writing is excellent, and the quieter, emotional moments between the violence are genuinely powerful. It hits especially hard if you’re a parent, but the struggle to push back against grief is something most of us understand in some way.

As for how it plays, you explore the world, interacting with objects to uncover new knowledge and gather items that can be turned into cards. You can refresh the spirit realm by resting at special stones, which restore your health but also revive the spirits, forcing you to push through them again.

Combat is turn-based and unfolds on a grid, with you and your enemies jockeying for position while you manage mana to play moves that attack, defend, or trigger entirely different effects. It’s a delicate balance and one that often feels stacked against you, but that only makes each victory more rewarding.

The challenge in every encounter reinforces the strength of the protagonist and her relentless fight to recover her son. Expect an uphill climb and a world that isn’t afraid to land emotional blows as you push forward.

The post Death Howl Mini-Review: A Genre-Bending Journey Through Grief appeared first on Green Man Gaming Blog.

Gross-out games are a bit of an oddity for me. I usually get the ick from them, and playing them is something I just can’t abide, but for whatever reason, the grossness of SWAPMEAT ends up entertaining me instead. The core idea is simple: it’s a third-person shooter with missions spread across different planets, and to survive, you steal body parts from defeated enemies to gain new abilities, mixing and matching them however you want.

The result is that you might wind up with a flying saucer for legs, a ninja for a head, and an eyebeam laser for a torso, plus your guns, helping you cut through the chaos. As you complete side objectives on each world, you level up and steer yourself toward a build focused on an elemental damage type, a swarm of fly companions, or just an absurd amount of health.

Each world has a main objective, but also a pile of side tasks you’ll stumble across as you explore. None of this is revolutionary design, but it’s all pretty fun, and it makes each run feel a bit like Helldivers… if Helldivers was drenched in meat. It’s a supremely silly concept and a supremely silly game, but it’s also immensely replayable.

It helps that it has co-op, meaning you and some friends can jump into the mess together and fend off the endless tide of meat and gore threatening to swallow the galaxy. Also, there’s a non-zero chance you’re actually working for the villain, which adds a fun layer to poke at and figure out.

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The thrill of mining and upgrading has been explored countless times in games, but the recent surge of roguelike twists on the formula has kept it feeling fresh. Wall World 2 is the latest to dig into that space, returning to the series’ towering vertical landscapes for another round of satisfying excavation.

Each run sends you delving into mines, unearthing resources, upgrading your digging tools or the combat systems of your wall-climbing spider mech, and chasing specific objectives. As you work, hazards emerge and the timer ticks up, until waves of monsters descend, forcing you to pause your mining and defend your mech in tense bursts of action.

The core challenge lies in timing and upgrade choices. It’s usually smart to improve your weapons first, though relics you uncover can completely shift your priorities. These relics grant powerful temporary abilities, like buzzsaw drones, deployable turrets, or the power to smash through rock with ease, and while they vanish at the end of each run, adapting your playstyle around them keeps every attempt engaging.

Despite its roguelike nature, Wall World 2 feels purposeful. Each run contributes to broader progress across distinct zones and objectives, gradually unravelling the mystery at the heart of the sequel. The mix of permanent upgrades, meaningful goals, and that eerie, almost eldritch atmosphere makes Wall World 2 an endlessly entertaining and surprisingly atmospheric ride.

The post Wall World 2 Mini-Review: An Eldritch Mining Joy appeared first on Green Man Gaming Blog.