God’s Trigger – Review
Follow Genre: top-down shooter
Developer: One More Level
Publisher: Techland Publishing
Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tested on: PC

God’s Trigger – Review

Site Score
9.0
Good: Gameplay, Soundtrack, Graphics
Bad: No online co-op
User Score
7.5
(4 votes)
Click to vote
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Rating: 7.5/10 (4 votes cast)

April treated us to a new top-down shooter by developer studio One More Level. God’s Trigger is often compared to the popular game Hotline Miami. The problem with inspiring games on other games is that they have an ideal be compared to by the fans. And they need to be as good, or even better if possible. This is definitely not an easy task. Let’s see if One More Level’s God’s Trigger is up to the challenge!

Story

God’s Trigger follows the story of the angel Harry and the demon Judy fighting side by side. They form an alliance and are killing their way into Heaven. They are hunting down the Four Horsemen, trying to get ahead of the oncoming Apocalypse. This is about all you get when it comes to the story, which takes place during cutscenes in the tutorial. It doesn’t really serve the game, it’s just there to have a story, and that’s fine. The game is about the action of the two characters, with the story being a fun, yet rather useless addition.

Graphics

The game itself uses 3D characters and surroundings. While the buildings you pass through are looking good, the top-down look on the characters isn’t all that. They look a bit boring, which is understandable because of the camera angle, but still. Furthermore, the game is very graphical since blood will literally spill all the freaking time. The cutscenes use comic-like drawings, and these are looking great as well.

Sound

So, Harry and Judy are both fully voice acted and we’re loving this! Besides this, the Four Horseman and other enemies also got voices and this just contributes to the whole experience even more. You’ll also get to enjoy an energetic soundtrack to help you get and stay in the mood to slaughter all your opponents. Lastly, add to this the splat sound you get every time you kill, together with all the other sound effects, and this makes for a perfect sound aspect.

Gameplay

God’s Trigger is a top-down shooter. The game starts off with a prologue (well, actually two) in which you learn about the story and the controls. After this, there are several chapters to go through, with each chapter containing various maps or levels. You can replay all maps if you want to beat your time or your score in a certain one. However, you can not move forward to the next chapter if you haven’t finished the previous one!

During the game, you can play with both Harry and Judy and you can freely switch between them at any time during the gameplay. Both characters have melee, as well as range attacks and can perform stealth kills as well. If you perform a stealth kill, you’ll obviously approach your opponent from behind, making no noise. After the attack, the body will disappear, leaving no trace of you being there, which can come in quite handy sometimes. Stealth attacks also have other advantages like gaining more experience points and recharging your ability bar faster.

Ability bar? Yes, well, both characters can have several special abilities. For example, Harry can become invisible for a short period of time, and Judy can mind-control the enemies so they start fighting each other. Both characters can auto-target an enemy, which will automatically attack the enemy you marked. Now, you can’t just use these abilities at all times. As you kill enemies, you’ll gain energy, which can then be spent on activating your special ability. You’ll need a full ability bar in order to activate your special ability. For auto-targeting things are a little easier, you’ll only need two charges per marking. As mentioned before, stealth kills will recharge your ability bar faster, granting it two charges, while a normal attack will only grant one charge.

Besides these special abilities, Harry and Judy also have special skills like bursting through cracked walls or teleporting through bars. These will definitely come in handy and will make sure you switch between your characters, which you might otherwise forget sometimes since you’ll probably start preferring working with one character more than the other. Anyway, both characters can also pick up weapons dropped by the enemies you killed. This is not the case with stealth attacks, since the bodies, and thus everything with it, disappears.

Throughout the game, you’ll run into a lot of destructible objects. Like a lot, a lot. If you feel like you’re not slaying enough enemies, try taking out your anger at the objects in your surroundings. It won’t only help with anger issues though! It will also help gain you various items like ammunition, ability charges, experience points, and so on!

The game is both harsh and kind at the same time. On the one hand, being hit by an enemy will kill you instantly. There is no mercy to be found here. On the other hand, the checkpoints are being really good to you. Since you’ll die quite often, the checkpoints follow up really, really fast. Honestly, thank the developers for this. Players sure as hell would feel a lot more frustrated if they had to go through killing the same enemies dozens of times. Now, you mostly just respawn at the point right before you were planning on attacking.

After each map or level is completed, you get some sort of overview of how things went. You’ll see how many weapons you were able to pick up (and which ones), how many deaths each character accomplished, the number of experience points gained, and your character’s levels. You’ll also get a grade for each map, based on the points mentioned above.

Our angel and demon can also level up thanks to the experience points. Leveling up unlocks upgrades for your abilities, as well as unlock new special abilities. You’ll also unlock perks, which give your character powerful passive bonuses.

Surprisingly, the chapters and prologues we mentioned above are not your only options. The game also features an arcade mode to help you train for the real deal. Here, you already get familiar with the various enemies you’ll encounter in the campaign modes, which may take away the newness a little bit, but also comes in quite handy if you’re not too experienced with these types of games yet. Level and experience also transfer between arcade and campaign mode, so if you feel like you’re not advancing in the campaign mode, you can easily try out one of the arcade levels to toughen up! Both the campaign and the arcade mode also offer a local co-op opportunity if you feel like playing with a friend. Unfortunately, online co-op is not possible (yet).

Conclusion

So, was God’s Trigger up to the challenge to try and live up to the expectations fans? Definitely! This game is a highly enjoyable top-down shooter which is easy to play, but hard to master. The gameplay is straight forward, even though a lot of extras are there, like the leveling up, abilities, and special skills. The combination of being both harsh and forgiving works perfectly here and the soundtrack does a great job at keeping you hyped throughout your journey. Surely a recommendation for your Steam library.

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Rating: 7.5/10 (4 votes cast)
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God's Trigger - Review, 7.5 out of 10 based on 4 ratings
Maui Vindevogel


23 year old based in Belgium with a passion for writing

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