Blast your way through enemies as you ping pong around and get through the castle in a new adventure. Check out our Roundguard review!
Castle Springbottom is under attack! It’s up to the Roundguard to save the king and recover his gold! Fling your hero into the face of danger and bounce off hordes of dangerously cute monsters to reach the bottom of the dungeon. With only one life, you’ll need to learn how to navigate hazards, make strategic choices, and master your hero’s skills if you hope to defeat the final boss. But don’t worry, the Roundguard always bounces back!
• Bouncy Fun: Intuitive pinball-physics-based gameplay like no other dungeon crawler
• Multiple Classes: Play as the Warrior, the Rogue, or the Wizard, each with their own unique skills, items, and cheeky sense of humor
• Randomized Dungeon: Each time you play, levels are procedurally generated, and quest events and elite monsters are randomly placed
• Permadeath with Benefits: When you die, you’ll have a chance to bring a special trinket with you on your next run. The more gold you grab, the better your chances to collect one of the most powerful trinkets
Roundguard Announce Trailer | Bouncy dungeon crawler on Apple Arcade, Steam, Switch, Xbox One + PS4
There’s no way around this: Roundguard is like Peggle but with RPG elements, and it’s great! If you’re not familiar with Peggle, you need to blast balls down so that they cascade as they hit pegs and eliminate them. You win when all of the orange pegs are gone. It’s fun, addictive, and a great time waster. Roundguard takes all of the quick arcade-style parts that make Peggle great and adds some fun RPG and roguelite elements.
At the beginning of Roundguard, you can select from three classes: the warrior, the rogue, and the wizard. You select one and begin your adventure through a randomized dungeon as you work your way down the many areas of each stage. Your character is at the top of the board, and you aim which way you want to shoot them. The goal is to attack the enemies on your way down, doing damage to them, and hopefully eliminating them. You can keep shooting until you run out of health. At the bottom of the level are many spikes, and if your character hits them, it will lose HP. There is also a cushion that moves back and forth, and if you land on it, that will save your hero from any additional damage.
On the board, you will see many different types of pegs and potions, including mana, which will allow you to use your special moves, more HP, treasures, and enemies. You want to strategically aim as best as you can to take advantage of these. The main goal is killing all of the enemies, reducing their health all the way to zero with your attacks and skills. It’s a really fun and addictive formula that kept me playing for a long time. Once you win the level, you will see several pots at the bottom of the level, and whichever one you fall in will establish which path you take towards the next area in the dungeon.
When you die, and you will, you do get to keep the gold you earned, which allows you to spend it before your next run, and you will earn relics that will add permanent boosts to you as you continue to play. It took quite a few tries before I was able to take my warrior run further than the first dungeon, so don’t feel down if you can’t just melee your way through the first dungeon on your first try. You can aim as best as you can, but some of the game’s outcomes will be based on luck.
Roundguard feels like you’re watching a play in a theater. I mean, there is even an intermission break as you play, with the curtain closing and opening between set pieces. It’s really unique and adds to the overall experience. Everything is very cute, with your round characters – and the round enemies – looking great on the screen. I love Peggle, and if I had one complaint about Roundguard, it would be that I did miss having a bit of the grandeur of completing a stage and having Ode to Joy. I’m not saying do that exactly, but something similar could have helped to scratch that itch.
Final Thoughts
Roundguard will be staying on my PlayStation 4 Pro’s hard drive for a while. It’s a game that I can play in short bursts and have a ton of fun. I loved the Peggle-style gameplay with all of the RPG and roguelite elements added to it, making it feel like a very fresh experience. Roundguard offers a lot of fun and is an easy recommendation.
Disclaimer
This Roundguard review is based on a PlayStation 4 copy provided by The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild.
