God’s Trigger is a bird’s-eye view shooter game that was released on 18th April 2019. It is available to play on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. The game was developed by One More Level and published by Techland Publishing. One More Level are quite a small company with just 20 people within their team, but they have a passion for creating games. They also have ambitions of working towards even bigger and better titles. Techland Publishing have brought us some bigger titles over the years, such as Dead Island, Dying Light and Call of Juarez: Gunslinger.
An Unlikely Team
God’s Trigger tells the story of an Angel and a Demoness that team up to fight their way to Heaven, and this unlikely teams aim to stop the Apocalypse. The game can be played solo or co-op. God’s Trigger is extremely fast-paced and involves a lot of split second decision making. Players have the opportunity to use a wide variety of weapons, special abilities and a targeting system to spill a lot of blood along the way. You will also get the chance to upgrade and customise both characters as you build their strength.
Judy, the Demoness, has escaped from Hell and is trapped on Earth. The start of the Apocalypse is threatening her existence on Earth, so she joins the fight with Harry to stop it. Harry is a disgraced Angel that has lost his wings and has fallen to Earth. Because of his disgrace, he is driven to save everyone.
Fight for Survival
God’s Trigger is extremely unforgiving when it comes to destroying Harry and Judy’s enemies. If you are playing the game solo, I would definitely recommend trying to be as stealthy as possible. If you are playing co-op, I would recommend having a plan before entering a room. The issue is that if you are hit once by an enemy, you are dead. When playing with a friend, you can get each other up when one of you is down, but there is a limit to how many times you can do this. The key to playing God’s Trigger is to take your time. The game feels extremely fast-paced, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take a minute to think about what you are doing before you do it.
How Good Is Your Aim?
God’s Trigger involves a lot of scenarios where you will need to utilise the ranged weapons within the game. There are points where you will enter a room filled with enemies, and you will need to be quick on the draw. The game will not be on your side if you just run into the room with guns blazing. That is why there is a targeting system available that lets players plan out in which order the enemies will die.
The number of enemies you can target depends on the amount of energy you have, which is shown via a gauge in the corner of the screen. This can be an extremely helpful tool to use, but you have to be careful of using it too often. Both of the characters have an individual special ability that also uses a full gauge of energy. When using the targeting system, you need to think if it is worth using the energy when you may need it for the special ability later on.
Creative Violence
God’s Trigger has a lot of great qualities. What I enjoyed most about playing the game is that it is extremely creative when it comes to the different ways you can destroy the enemies. The large number of weapons and abilities that are available for both characters gives you a variety of options on how you want to shed a lot of blood. The game is very violent overall. Out of the two characters that are available, I preferred playing as Judy because she is just very cool. She has a bladed chain that lets her strike enemies from a fair distance. It is really fun to kill enemies with her weapon, and she just has a lot of style. When you play as her, you feel like a bit of a badass.
Another thing I really enjoyed about God’s Trigger is how chaotic it feels. As I have mentioned, the game is very fast-paced, and it is important to stop and think about your next move. With that being said, it still feels like absolute mayhem, and that makes it really fun to play. The game is also quite challenging. When playing alone, you won’t have a friend to revive you when you get taken down by enemies, meaning you’re dead as soon as an enemy hits you and will have start from the most recent checkpoint
Rinse and Repeat
The biggest issue with God’s Trigger is that the story doesn’t feel very original. It’s a typical story of Angel and Demon coming together to stop the Apocalypse. It all seems like it has been done to death already. Each chapter within the game is also extremely similar. It feels like you are just running through the same level over and over again with a different cutscene in between. Another issue that I found is that I was expecting a bit more banter between the characters. Admittedly, this would be difficult to implement when playing solo because you only play as one of the characters at a time, but when playing co-op, I would have expected a few one-liners between the characters to keep it light and to have a bit of humor involved.
As I have mentioned, God’s Trigger is quite challenging. This is great because it makes you feel like you have accomplished something when you overcome a difficult obstacle. The issue that I have with this is that you cannot change the difficulty at all. For people that aren’t seasoned in shooter games, it would have been nice to at least adjust the difficulty slightly so that you don’t die after being hit once. Now, I am not saying it needs to be a walk in the park. It is just that after dying in one part of the game multiple times, it can become very frustrating. It is definitely a game to play with a friend so that you have some back-up.
God’s Trigger Overall
In a nutshell, God’s Trigger is quite a fun game to play. It is very violent and creative when it comes to the weapons and abilities, which I really enjoyed. The game is not without its issues, which mainly lie in the unoriginal story that’s already been done so many times before. The game is very chaotic and challenging. In a way this is good because it gave me a sense of accomplishment when getting past an obstacle I had struggled with. At the same time, I feel there should be an option to adjust the difficulty. If you enjoy shooter games that are from the perspective of a bird’s-eye view, then you will likely enjoy this game very much. God’s Trigger is great as an arcade game, and it is quite cheap to purchase.
Developer: One More Level
Publisher: Techland Publishing
Platform: Xbox One, PS4, PC
Release Date: 18th April 2019