You can concoct lightning bullets that arc to multiple different enemies or shoot down a tree with your burning bullets if you are in need of charcoal and even create bullets that charm some of your biggest foes to fight alongside you.

More often than not, when a game tries to incorporate too many genres, it usually lacks execution in some areas. However, the most magical thing about Wizard With A Gun is how it throws elements from about eight different genres into its cauldron, but still manages to feel unique with a very satisfying and addicting gameplay loop.

Mixy Business

The recipe is approximately one part dungeon crawler, one part rogue lite, one part survival game, a pinch of extraction game, a dash of shooter, then add crafting to taste. There is just enough of each genre to please most.

At its core, Wizard with a Gun is an action adventure game that has you exploring the shattered remains of the world for resources within the allotted five minutes and return to the tower with the gears you need to roll back time to save the world. The resources you find allow you to upgrade and craft better equipment to delve deeper into the shatter.

Going farther and longer is risky, as the game features rogue like elements. Reactivating the time wheel will change the layout of the lands, but it will also start a timer that informs you when chaos will descend. There are ways to delay chaos in the shatter, but once the timer runs out, everything becomes much more dangerous and the stakes get raised, as dying will cause you to lose everything that you have discovered during that run.

The aformentioned gameplay loop isn’t revolutionary: Explore, collect, survive, craft, and fight. Progress can feel a little slower at the start as there are a lot of systems that the game needs to explain to you, but once you start to understand the language of the world, everything starts to click into place. By the time you reach the final level, you will need to be fully in all the systems to ensure success.

There will undoubtedly come a time when you can’t find the resource you need. Until the realization sets in that you are in complete control of everything. If you need rotten wood, shoot down a tree with toxic bullets. There is usually more than one way to get something in Wizard With A Gun and a lot of the fun is actually discovering what different combinations result in.

On a low end you are looking at about 20 hours, but 25-50 is more accurate for what most people will experience, especially those with a stronger affinity to cosmetics and base building than I am. It’s easy to envision multiple plays as well because you can spec your character differently. During my time, I tried to create a necromancer build to the best of my ability, but there are many different ways that you could spec your wizard with different weapons, spells and equipment that will drastically change how you experience the world.

Casting The Wrong Spell

There are a few minor quality of life issues that would have smoothed out the experience, like the ability to transfer your ammunition from your old gun to your new gun without having to waste it. It also would have have been great if the timer paused when you stop and talk to some of the friendly NPC’s who you come across in the shatter. Although they are trying to progress the plot, the clock that keeps ticking nudges you to skim through and instead make the most of the time exploring the shatter before chaos comes looking for you. The other missed opportunity to further explain the storyline would have been to add in a few more animated cutscenes after each boss like the one at the beginning of the game.

There is also a massive difficulty spike for the fourth biome, especially the penultimate boss. The rest of the game gradually increases in difficulty but the fourth biome is tough and will make sure you are fluent with maxed out spells and gear.

Verdict

Wizard With A Gun casts a strong spell by convincing you that venturing out into the shatter just once more is a good idea because the timer is only five minutes. Almost every time that five minutes melted into an hour, which is a testament to how Wizard With A Gun constantly dangles the carrot just in front of you with its extremely addicting gameplay loop that never gets boring as the world evolves, environments change with new difficulties, different enemies emerge, gear improves and the challenge increases.

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