Wizard with a Gun Review

ign.com:

With a ridiculous on-the-nose title like Wizard with a Gun, you know exactly what you’re getting into. You’re a wizard, and you have a gun. But the gun is also your wand, so even though you’re shooting all manner of creatures, it’s magical shooting. This silly premise has a lot going for it, opening the door for plenty of unique combat scenarios in its sandbox world. But despite a great opening, Wizard with a Gun starts losing momentum once it becomes clear that it just doesn’t feel finished. Pulling off spell combos and crafting new bullets can be a lot of fun with a friend in co-op, and there is a good amount to explore for fans of survival sandboxes, but balance issues and the lack of a proper ending leave it feeling like it’s missing an Early Access label. As my friends and I kept saying, “it’s got good bones,” but the robes on top of them don’t take long to wear thin.

Wizard with a Gun immediately gets you to the shooting and the wizarding, with a campaign that’s easy to understand on its face: With only five minutes left before the world ends, you have to keep turning back the clock in order to defeat chaos and save all existence. How you choose to use each five-minute chunk is up to you, be it gathering resources for a complex but rewarding crafting system, or maybe facing off against a mini boss to gather gears that allow you to unlock more areas to explore. At any point you can choose to escape to the Tower, where you can spend as much time as you want doing research to gather more bullets — I mean spells — for your many guns, or decorate your headquarters using recipes you get through exploration (although there isn’t much to gain for doing so). Then, once you’re ready, you reset the clock and venture back out.