Roundguard Review (Nintendo Switch)

I purchased the game myself

A Little Introduction

Most people remember Popcap’s classic puzzle game Peggle, for those that don’t know what kind of game Peggle is here is a quick explanation. In Peggle you shoot a ball from a cannon at the top of the screen, with the goal of eliminating the pegs that are scattered across the screen, the ball bounces around before falling of the screen. It’s a mixture of luck and a little tiny bit of skill as you line up the shots to clear away as many pegs as you can.

You may wonder why I’m writing about Peggle when this review is about Roundguard. Well, that’s because developers Wonderbelly Games have taken the overall premise and mechanics of Peggle and added in rogue like dungeon crawler elements to the gameplay and turned it into Roundguard. And it’s not as crazy as it sounds as it actually makes for some great gameplay.

Three Heroes

As Roundguard begins, you get to chose one of 3 hero classes each with slightly different health and mana levels: rogue, wizard and warrior. They all have their own power up attacks or skills, for example the wizard, with the help of two spiders that follow her up and down at the side of the screen, can electrocute enemies and objects with lighting. Where as the rogue can use a double jump, and the warrior has a spin attack as their skill.

As you move down the dungeons you will also find lots of treasure such as: extra special attacks which can be equipped, weapons, and armour, and both of these add in additional bonuses for the heroes.

Fired From A Cannon

In Peggle you shoot a ball from the cannon, however in Roundguard the hero you select is launched from the cannon at the top of the screen. You can aim them at a target but once they start bouncing around the screen you don’t have any direct control over them; you do have control over when to use their special attacks.

Watching the hero bounce and ricochet of enemies and objects is a lot of fun. As your hero bounces around the screen hitting of objects, collecting gold, and bouncing of enemies, they inflict damage on the enemies they hit and your hero suffers damage as well. Your hero has one life, indicated by the red health bar, and below that is a mana bar which you also have to keep an eye on. To re-fill the health and mana bars there are little jars of health and mana scattered in each level and hitting these will replenish some of your health or mana. As you only have one life once the health bar is depleted it’s instant death and back to the start if the game. All is not lost though as you gain a bonus for your next run through the dungeons.

Collect Relics and Gold

As you move down the dungeon you’ll encounter boss battles; once defeated, and you have cleared the dungeon, you’ll receive relic: one of eleven to collect. The relics add in extra bonus for your hero, such as having a longer health bar or having more mana pots on the screen to collect.

All the dungeons, enemies and objects are randomized so each time you play it’s a different set up, and the runs through the dungeons are never the same. This helps to keep the game fresh and stops the runs being repetitive.

Your hero collects gold as they bounce around, unlike other games where there might be a shop to spend your hard earned gold to buy armour and weapons, in Roundguard there is no where to spend your gold. Instead the gold from each run is added up and uploaded to an online leaderboard, where you can view other players scores. This does add replay to the game as you try to beat the scores on the leaderboard and become the best at Roundguard.

Visuals and Controls

Roundguard is very easy to control via the joy-cons, everything is very accessible and easy to pick up and play. The game runs smoothly, with no glitches and adequate loading time. I really like the cartoon look, and the sound effects to match, and with a little dash of humour added to the gameplay it will bring a smile to your face while you’re playing.

Conclusion

Roundguard lays a new twist on dungeon crawler games; it’s a clever idea that has been executed very well by the developers and turned into an addictive and cohesive game that works. For those that are missing their puzzle/Peggle hit, Roundguard could fill that gap. While it’s not an overly long game, what it does supply is very enjoyable and fun gameplay.

Roundguard is a great game to jump in and out of during shorter gaming sessions to get your gaming hit with, I wholeheartedly recommend Roundguard for your Nintendo Switch.

Final Verdict: I like it a lot!