God’s Trigger is a game built with Unity that just oozes retro top down shooter style. Much like Hotline Miami, the game features a pumping soundtrack with classic gameplay to boot. Developers One More Level (OML) have outdone themselves and have created an exceptionally great game that is both challenging yet immensely rewarding.
In God’s Trigger, players will play as either Harry or Judy. Harry is an Angel fallen from Heaven and Judy is a Demon that’s been living on Earth for over 2000 years. The game starts off with an introductory sequence that serves as the tutorial and then thrusts you back into the past to explain the story so far. Essentially this means that you’ll be playing catch up to where the current events are happening but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It serves as a fairly straight forward plot device and it works well.
Playing as Harry, players will be able to use a holy sword to cut through enemies with melee slashes. Judy on the other hand has an extended range attack as she makes use of a fiery whip. Players thus have the option to either play as a close range attacker or a long range one and can make the switch whenever they want to with the press of a button. Harry and Judy also have access to a skill tree with unique abilities that they can perform. These are unlocked as you level up and you can upgrade these skills with a set of modifiers such as reduced cooldowns or larger areas of effect. This creates a very rewarding progression system and since you level up quite quickly at first, it pushes you to gain exp to unlock the next new thing that’s hidden away in the skill tree.
Earlier levels in the game might seem soul crushingly hard but this is largely due to the fact that you won’t have unlocked much of the latter skills which makes the game easier to play. If you can get past the steep learning curve the first chapter throws at you, the rest of the game seemingly falls into place and you should be able to progress through it without too much difficulty.
That said, some of the latter levels have some brutal sections that you will be retrying over and over since the game makes use of one extremely punishing mechanic that may put off some gamers. One shot, one kill. If you take a shot, or a sword slash, or get lasered or take any damage at all, it’s over for you. You simply die, respawn and have try that segment of the level again. This is what makes God’s Trigger an enjoyable game though. It’s a cycle of rush in, scout out the enemy situation, plan an attack, try to best them, fail and repeat until you get through. Generally speaking, most levels have one or two sections which will force you to make use of your abilities and think things through but overall, it’s fairly straightforward and shouldn’t induce too much frustration or rage provided you don’t play without a plan of action.
Being able to use Judy’s mind control ability when you have accumulated enough energy makes things quite easy in some cases and Harry’s divine shield and unlockable iron skill perk allows him to survive projectiles and explosions. The game has other perks to collect too and these are found in levels through exploration. There’s also a full set of lewd pinup magazine pages to collect and while this may put off some people, it can serve as a reward for others based on their feelings toward such content. Collecting all of these magazine pages is no easy task and some are hidden away in places you wouldn’t expect to find them such as in secret rooms or passages that are off the beaten path in a level. This means that going back to find the magazines extends the game’s longevity somewhat.
God’s Trigger has a great art style and because of its graphical aesthetic, it will survive the test of time since it doesn’t aim for ultra-realism. Instead, the artistic level design and graphic novel-esque look just ooze style and substance and the game benefits greatly from it. Enemies are varied enough too and the level design is top notch throughout the game’s five chapters.
Overall, God’s Trigger is a fun filled top down “Shooter” with a rewarding campaign that will keep you coming back for more. The game also features an arcade mode and a co-op mode which round off the package and will surely keep you busy for hours on end. God’s Trigger is ultimately a must buy title if you’re a fan of top down shooters with artistic flair and great gameplay.
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