It is with a certain a priori that we set foot in the hostile lands of Wizard with a Gun. Aligning a skewer of concepts to describe a game is not always a guarantee of quality. ” Online cooperative sandbox survival game set in a magical wilderness populated by dangerous creatures and arcane mysteries read on the official Devolver page. That’s a lot for one man. Finally, for once, for the dozen people who make up the Galvanic Games team. However, the sauce takes quickly, and after having folded the demo to which we were able to have access in preview, it is clear that we find ourselves caught up in the video game proposal of “Wiz wiz a gun”, and that moreover, all that was announced on the banner with extension of the title is indeed there, with the manner please.
With his blunderbuss loaded with spaghetti
Not bolognese sauce, but magic recipes of all kinds, enough to clear the territories randomly generated by “Swish Swish a gun”. Because as its name suggests, Wizard with a Gun has put magic at the heart of its gameplay, and the systemic coherence of its universe. The first contact is made through a magnificent animation sequence, a sort of homage to John Wayne’s films by followers of the clear line, all bathed in a magical atmosphere evoking as much the comics of Jonah Hex than the work of Pratchett. A minute and a half later, here we are in the bath, customizing from head to toe our avatar (or Gunmancer… – We offer “Flinguicien” for the VF -), before being thrown into the scenario.
The latter does not revolutionize magic gunpowder, but has the good idea to treat his subject with humor. After a magical catastrophe, the world is reduced to nothing, or almost. Only pieces of the world remain floating in the interstellar void, which will have to be reunited to make it livable again. The remnants of universes are also invaded by creatures of Chaos, making the task all the more complex. Some would have yelled You have to kill Chaos “, but it is not the credo of the house. With a certain cynicism, the Cryptomancer, local guide/tutorial, will bring the scenario and the basics of the game mechanics, not without explaining to you that you are not his first choice of hero, but that the others are already dead. To achieve your goals, you will have to rely on your ability to crafter weapons and their magic ammunition, and to rebuild the Tower, hub central from which the hero’s life will be organized between two wild adventures.
Minecraft with guns? Yes and no
If the title claims its appearance sand box -we will come back to this-, the beginnings were all in all quite dirigiste, WWAG organized around a system of missions on randomly generated pieces of territory delivered to Chaos, from which it will be necessary to escape alive. Round trips between the hub central and there will be many prospecting sites. In the demo we walked through, exploration was limited to the first biome, the Imperium, where the ruins of ancient civilizations contend with a stammering nature trying to reassert itself. Incursions into the Imperium are time-limited (5 minutes at the start, increasing in duration as you progress), and missions must be executed diligently or Chaos portals will open at all costs. parts and spit their slimy offspring all over the map. We therefore find ourselves under pressure, feverishly watching the counter at the top of the screen quickly tick off its seconds before the outbreak of a small Lovecraftian apocalypse carefully located on the hero’s face.
These missions will be an opportunity to glean resources that will be the sinews of war. Most of the elements of the decor are destructible (but have several levels of resistance), and will deliver their share of items once destroyed. You know the song: the more resources you collect, the more you can craft, get better equipment, build new buildings, become stronger and more efficient, and therefore go back to coal better armed. If “Twix Stix with a Gun” does not derogate from this principle of the sandbox world, it brings novelty and freshness on two essential points. First of all, it will be necessary to use the magic grimoire entrusted by the Cryptomancer to scan the elements (living or not) and buildings of the world, in order to understand their composition and be able to reproduce them at will. Serving as a compendium and an analysis tool, the use of the grimoire should not be neglected at the start of the game, otherwise you will run out of buildings or workbenches to build, thus depriving yourself of the many possibilities evolution of its armament. This is how we come to the second point: WWAG is also a twin stick shooter. Moreover, very good quality.
If it does not have the ambition to become a competitor to Nex Machina or Enter The Gungeon, the gameplay proposal of the title of Galvanic Games is still pleasing. Even if it is quite playable with a keyboard/mouse combo, the title flourishes fully joystick in hand: right stick to aim, the left to move, the triggers to shoot, a dodge button and the mass is say. This injection of nervous action in the sandbox hits the bull’s eye, and we take real pleasure in sniping with a blunderbuss the chaotic brood and other highwaymen who want to block our way. We will then take care to collect new materials to improve our weapons and our different types of bullets (fire, ice, poison, confusion…). A clever system is thus established where one of the great assets of the title resides: the genres consolidate each other, and do not live side by side. WWAG manages to mix twin stick shootersandbox and crafting into a coherent whole that makes sense.
Wild Wiz West
We had carefully avoided talking about the elephant in the play: yes, the game is beautiful. Very beautiful even. The completely assumed cartoon aspect of the title, coupled with an original design that refers as much to European comics as to independent comic books (we often think of bone by Jeff Smith), immediately hits the mark. The quality of the animation, of an irreproachable fluidity, offers a setting where AD can fully develop. But even more, it is the music composed by Ryan Ike (author of the fabulous OST of Where the Water Tastes Like Wine) which constitutes one of the most serious finery of this Wild Wild West in Devolver sauce. Mainly using dry guitar, a western atmosphere obliges, it poses a melancholic atmosphere which denotes with the humorous tone of the game, while fitting it like a glove. From what little we have heard, it is a success.
Nevertheless, although the DA is mastered, and the concept of the title works very well, gray areas are currently marring the picture. At the level of the gameplay loop first. If we were only able to explore the first world and destroy the first boss, it turns out that we feel a certain redundancy in chaining the same pattern: exploration, harvesting, crafting weapons, etc. Despite the possibilities of customization which seem quite vast, the loop is sometimes exhausted, the fault of this permanent countdown which pushes you to always return to the starting point fairly quickly. Moreover, we will deplore hitboxes sometimes capricious, even unfair, which harm the pleasure of canardage in good standing. Finally, note that if the sandbox aspect is justified in the central hub, which we will take a certain pleasure in developing, this aspect is just reduced to the harvesting of resources during exploration. Meter requires, we will not have fun building a fortress in one of the randomly generated lands. In addition, we regret not having been able to test the multiplayer mode, yet widely put forward by Devolver and Galvanic Games.
