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Guts and Glory (Switch) Review

by David Lloyd - August 6, 2018, 8:55 am EDT
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The charm got left behind during its port development.

A few years ago, some indie developers quickly realized there was an opportunity at free advertising in the form of YouTube Let’s Play personalities. Quality of the product became secondary to its marketability, resulting in both intended and unintended glitches and errors that streamers would routinely mock in their quest for more clicks. A perfect example of this phenomenon is Guts and Glory, an Early Access title that achieved notoriety a few years ago from being showcased on some of YouTube’s most popular streaming channels. The official release on Steam was back in January, and now it’s made it way on the Switch thanks to tinyBuild. It’s likely this intentionally bad game may be fun playing on Steam, but some unintended problems with the port make this version virtually unplayable.

Get from point A to point B, it’s that simple. The hard part is staying alive, as a wide assortment of mines, buzzsaws, ball cannons, and all sorts of devious contraptions meant to brutally murder you are in the way. Getting to the finish line doesn’t feel all that satisfying since most tracks really aren’t all that difficult. The entertainment value is coming up with new and innovative ways to get chopped, impaled, or exploded. Or it would be if the frames per second didn’t hit single digits, or in many cases completely skip. In one particular instance, a chain reaction of detonating mines resulted in a stutter so bad that my character went from enjoying a leisurely bike ride down a hill to lying on the ground with my intestines hanging out, with only a few frozen frames in between.

Don’t get me wrong, crashing an ATV off of a monster jump into a pool of mines is fun, and maybe you’re willing to put up with severe frame rate issues to do so. But what you’re not likely willing to endure is a not insignificant wait between deaths. A excruciatingly long 10 second load time between respawns completely saps the enjoyment out of finding new ways to maim your character.

Guts and Glory isn’t the first, and won’t be the last title that lost its playability being ported to the Switch (WWE 2K18 comes to mind). It’s another example of all ports not being equal as developers still struggle to discover all of the ins and out of the porting process. If getting sliced in half or impaled by a buzzsaw is a can’t miss experience, I would recommend looking at another platform to play it on.

Summary

Pros
  • Silly fun
Cons
  • Long loading times
  • Severe frame rate issues

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Game Profile

Genre Action
Developer tinyBuild Games
Players1

Worldwide Releases

na: Guts & Glory
Release Jul 19, 2018
PublishertinyBuild Games
RatingMature

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