Colt Canyon Review | Gun slinging wild west roguelike.

The western action roguelike Colt Canyon is beautiful! I didn't expect to find such a competent roguelike game inside. They did it though! Each run is fun and exciting. This is a skill-based game that starts from the beginning each run without powering up the player.

Which means no grinding. At this point, it's probably no surprise I think Colt Canyon is fantastic, sorry for review spoilers. A powerful blend of interesting weaponry, an assault of enemies, and challenging gameplay that keeps me coming back for more.

Mechanics are the key in Colt Canyon and with that let's run down them all. Colt Canyon's premise is stale and not where the game shines. It's the tale as old as time! Hey, stay with me! Your romantic partner is taken by bandits and now it's your job to get them back.

It requires fighting through a world filled to the brim with bandits. There are fewer bad guys in real life and it makes you wonder maybe you're playing the bad guy. While the premise isn't original it's enough to push the character along into the game's best parts.

The game loop! You start with one weapon and a couple bullets. Fighting your way from left to right through randomly generated layouts. Picking up new weapons and saving hostages along the way. It's much easier said than done. The randomly generated areas are fun! The layouts are interesting.

I can tell they crafted specific sections and connected them by canyons. It's a rogue map, like "Enter the Gungeon", but a lot less obvious. Incredibly smart! You can decide if you want to try and stealth kill the enemies or go in guns blazing. The stealth is important since conserving ammo is critical.

Even later when you've got so much ammunition you don't know what to do with it all. After a few fights it can be depleted. The stronger enemies are bullet sponges. The stealth is simple. You don't get any indication for enemy sight ranges or gun sounds.

Using some common sense and practice you get used to it but more features would have gone a long way. I'm too spoiled now from other games. Hold up! There's no way we can continue without talking about the music and sound. It's one of the pieces of an indie game that frequently has so little.

Colt Canyon went light but it works. While exploring, the game sends light music and ambient wilderness sounds straight to your eat holes. It's calming and perfect for trying to sneak up on enemies. However, once you get into the heat of battle the music becomes louder and more frantic.

Hype! The developers did a great job here. Anyway, the goal of the open areas is to find hostages. With a keen ear, you can hear their muffled calls for help. Freeing them allows you to choose between several different upgrades. For example, two empty health hearts or the ability to carry more ammo.

Extremely useful and worthy of a little searching. On a more interesting note, you can ask the hostage to join you. You can even get a small posse going. However, they would be a terrible posse because they couldn't shoot a barrel or a fish. They are excellent enemy distractions! They can tap dance around while you eliminate the enemies trying to shoot them instead.

Also, it's incredibly sad when they walk right into thorny bushes. It gets even worse as you use your health to revive them. I usually let them die, sorry! While it's a cool feature I can't figure out if it's worth it. Moving on to the bosses. It's an important topic but I can only speak to the first boss.

My skills are lacking as I've only been able to reach the first one so far. Let's try something new with a small breakdown of the fight. It's quite tricky because they have a collection of field workers or bodyguards protecting them. Along with their long-ranged attack, it seems they have no weaknesses.

If your first thought was to take out all the bodyguards then great minds think alike! It's not going to work because they will call in more. It seems they have more than you have ammo. Running around is dangerous because if the workers catch up they'll attack you.

Even running just out of range of them you're still in range of the boss's whip. Without a speed upgrade, I have trouble getting the right angle to shoot them. It's a lot more difficult than I expect a first boss to be but their design is interesting.

I like it! Oh, and if you're wondering about the boss's health, they don't clutter the interface with a bar. Instead, their exclamation mark will become less filled with color, it's subtle. To fight all these enemies you'll need guns, lot of guns. Colt Canyon has a diverse set of them.

Although it requires a lot of trial and error. I can't figure out the difference between a long and short revolver. Yes, I mean besides the fact one is longer than the other. I mean how they handle attacking. Does one have higher accuracy? Does the other have higher damage? Seems like important information for the player.

Even how many shots a weapon has or how many bullets it fires at once would be nice. You have to try them first but tests waste precious ammo. The important information isn't given to the player. Maybe I'm overthinking it and they all have the same stats but are included for fun.

I consider this a mistake and misses the fun of having multiple weapons in your game. Another place Colt Canyon is weak is the unlocks. While there are characters and starting weapons to unlock for them it's unclear how it's done. I know playing absolutely unlocks items because I've unlocked a few things already.

Without knowing exactly why it screws with the sense of progression. I can't anticipate or get excited about trying something new. I'm a little stuck right now and I'm dying to try the other characters. I'm complaining but it's not a deal-breaker. It would be nice to try alternative playstyles to see if they suit me better.

Maybe I could get further in the game. At the moment the characters I did unlock are not ones I enjoy playing at all. One of them is far too slow and the other has a starting gun that isn't for me. Overall, Colt Canyon is a blast. Making a perfect run while trying to cobble together supplies is fun.

It's challenging! I wish the stealth was fleshed out more and the game made it clearer how to unlock items and characters. However, it doesn't take away anything from the excellent main game loop. I can play the first character for hours before goring bored.