Game: Turnip Boy Robs a Bank
Genre: Humor, Indie, Roguelite
System: Steam (Windows) (also available for Nintendo Switch, Epic Games, & Xbox)
Developer|Publisher: Snoozy Kazoo | Graffiti Games
Age Rating: US Teen | EU 7+
Controller Support: Full
Price: UK £13.49 | US $14.99 | EU € 14,99
Release Date: January 18th, 2024
Review code provided with many thanks to Sandbox Strategies.
As someone who 100%-ed Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, I was super excited to be able to play Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, a game that takes place the day after the ending events of the previous title. The second one is massively different from the first in ways I absolutely did not expect.
The Difference Between Turnip Boy Committing Tax Evasion and Robbing a Bank
If you are unfamiliar with the first game, Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is mostly a fetch quest game. You walk around the world doing tasks while chatting with the locals, attacking enemies with your sword, and solving all sorts of puzzles. There are some pretty challenging ones, too, including some Portal-like puzzles toward the end.

Turnip Boy Robs a Bank is an action-adventure roguelite where you rob the same bank over and over again, each time getting a little bit further into the bank with upgrades and new weapons. Turnip Boy can buy items, upgrades to his life, and money bags and damage, and fight further and further into this dangerous bank. Each time you invade the bank, you are given a timer of three minutes to grab as much stuff, chat with as many locals, and cover as much ground as you can.
There are also bosses that have keycards to unlock new areas and shortcuts to help you get through the bank faster in future runs. Each boss is pretty similar; they all spawn adds and have a couple of attacks, but they all have a unique personality that makes them fun to battle. You only have to defeat them once, but you can battle them again if you choose to.

The fetch quest aspects of the first game are still very much present in Turnip Boy Robs a Bank; each room contains a whole bunch of NPCs you can chat with, and many of them have quests to take on. This means a lot of backtracking, but that matters a whole lot less since you need to collect as much money in all the areas as you can anyway.

The Humor is Still Here
In Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, there was a lot of weird internet humor. I thought it was a whole lot of silly fun, but the end of the game was a little dark. Turnip Boy Robs a Bank starts dark and continues in this eradicated world filled with talking veggies and food with faces.
You don’t have to play the first game before you dive into bank robbing, but I would 100% recommend it. There are some returning characters and some continuation of the plot. However, there is an option in the beginning to say that you haven’t played the original, and I assume it gives you a breakdown of the plot thus far. I didn’t have time to watch it, so I don’t have an idea of how much the story it has time to tell.
But, whether or not you’ve played the first one, most people who have spent a decent amount of time on the internet will recognize the Millennial-or-Younger-Meme-Humor TM that can be found in Turnip Boy Robs a Bank. After the fight with Yeehaw, he says that he has “Yee’d my last Haww.” During the battle with the Mech Chad, a slime-creation video plays at the bottom of the screen to try to distract you from what’s going on in the game. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that it worked on me the first time through the fight; I actually found myself watching the hands make the slimes instead of what Chad was up to.

One of my favorite NPCs from the first game is also back in this one, a macaroni pasta who spouts copy pastas at you if you interact with him. 10/10 internet humor, no notes.
The Overall Look and Feel of Turnip Boy Robs a Bank
Turnip Boy Robs a Bank is really well done. It’s highly polished, filled with great music, good movement tech, and incredibly fun. I did not experience any bugs, and I enjoyed every aspect of the game. Overall, it’s a super fun action roguelite with fun upgrades and an interesting and weird plot. To be honest, I haven’t entirely finished it yet, as we got the code shortly before release, and we wanted to bring you our review as soon as possible, but I plan on finishing it. I just keep getting distracted by Turnip Boy Robs a Bank‘s weird little side quests like collecting Pet Rocks.

Like in the previous game, you get to collect all sorts of cute little hats and change them whenever you like. There are weird little weapons like a frog gun that shoots flies and a mushroom that fires spores at enemies. There is a combination of all sorts of unique melee and ranged weapons to fit your style.
In Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, you can also change the music at any time and check your quest list, collections, progress, and all sorts of other things in the menu. I love it when games just give you your stats like hours played, deaths, and other things like that, and Turnip Boy Robs a Bank has a menu just for all that.

I like a lot of what they have put into this sequel. It was a little bit of a shock when I opened it up and realized it was a completely different genre of game (I don’t look at teasers or spoilers for upcoming games if I can help it because I like to go in without any expectations), but I was not disappointed. However, if you are hoping for another Tax Evasion, you are not going to have a good time. There was only one thing I don’t like about Turnip Boy Robs a Bank so far, and that’s how you always start in the same spot. The keycards allow you to unlock shortcuts, but when you’re on a timer, it’s kind of bad that you can’t really start from a variety of places. This might be unlockable in the later game, and I will update this if it turns out that I just missed it.
Conclusion
Turnip Boy Robs a Bank is silly, weird, fun, and completely unexpected. I was floored when I dove into it. I was a little unsure of the direction the developers chose to take it at first, but it quickly grew on me. The music, the sound design, the upgrades… Everything about Turnip Boy Robs a Bank is fun. I am stoked that I got to play this action Roguelite early, and I cannot recommend it enough for those who like this type of game.
Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up: