Game Reviews

Trigger Heroes review - "A top-down shooter that's a little more measured than most"

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iOS
| Trigger Heroes
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Trigger Heroes review - "A top-down shooter that's a little more measured than most"
|
iOS
| Trigger Heroes

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When you think about action roguelikes the first thing that comes to mind is probably a frantic, scrambling battle to the death. But that's not the road that Trigger Heroes takes, and it's all the better because of that.

Where other games are desperate for you to charge into the fray, here we have a shooter that's a little more measured. Charge straight into the scrap and there's a very good chance that you're going to end up dead within a matter of seconds.

Instead you're skulking around the edges, trying to pick off your foes one by one. Throw in simple but incredibly effective controls and you're left with an experience that sits comfortably in the upper echelons of the midcore fun table.

Finger tricks

The game is set over a series of themed but randomly generated levels. If you're fighting in the third section, for example, you know it's going to be snowy, but you don't know which corners you're going to have to move round or which enemies you're going to have to shoot in the face.

When you're moving, you're shooting. Your character follows your thumb or finger around the screen, blasting away quite happily. The game picks which enemy to target, leaving you to concentrate on avoiding the bullets and rockets coming at you from all angles.

Swiping on the screen performs a little dodge in that direction, and you're invulnerable while you're doing it. Sometimes the only choice you've got is to get away quickly, but it's not the most comfortable action moving from a press to a swipe.

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Within each game you can buy buffs to help you out. These only last as long as you manage to stay alive, but they can really give you an advantage, especially in the later levels. Another currency lets you buy new characters who offer different skills of their own.

There's a whole arsenal of weapons to uncover too, and a star rating system and boosts that apply only to specific guns. In other words there's a decent amount of depth here even with the simple controls.

And the gunplay is some of the best we've seen on the App Store for a good long while. It fizzes with little moments of strategy, as you try and flank a group of opponents before they realise what's happened. You're not an unstoppable death machine, but you've got the tools to get the job done - it's up to you how you use them.

Trigger warning

Trigger Heroes isn't the most original game out there, especially not if you just give it the cursory glance that so many buying decisions are informed by on mobile nowadays. But dig a bit deeper and you're going to find a really solid, entertaining blaster.

Once you're done with it, which will take a good few hours of play, you're unlikely to come back. But for those few hours, while you're slicing through hordes of evil bunnies and the like, you're going to have a right big smile on your face.

Trigger Heroes review - "A top-down shooter that's a little more measured than most"

A perfectly-sized, well thought out roguelike that's got a lot more to it than meets the eye
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.