It’s not every day we get the chance to play as a gun-toting frog riding a sword-wielding robot, but that’s exactly what Shoulders of Giants offers. This sci-fi roguelike from Moving Pieces Interactive takes us on a journey in a dying galaxy where evil forces, in the game called Entropy, take over planet after planet and our odd couple’s goal is therefore to put an end to this and give the planets life and color back .
From our hub planet, we can choose to talk to our pals, who for some reason don’t seem to want to join the fight. It feels like we drew the short straw. While we are out fighting for the survival of the galaxy, an owl sits and chills in a tree and lets us upgrade our trait tree. A panda stands and hammers and lets us change the properties and appearance of our radar pair, a gun-crazy monkey lets us upgrade our weapons and a philosophical lizard stands and looks into his telescope and is the one who sends us to the next planet.
We get to choose between three planets each time to try to save from the precipice of ruin. Each planet has a specific amount of “heat” baked into it. If we manage to save the planet, we get this heat added to our total, but if we are defeated, you lose the same amount. Since the story moves on to the next stage after we reach a specific amount, it feels like a real blow if two or more planets are lost in a row and we are forced to start over almost from scratch, which can cost many hours. We are dropped on each planet where we find our own qualities to use. Namely, from the beginning only one feature is unlocked on each planet, which feature is up to us by asking our panda friend, who can let you use different “cores”. However, new cores have to be unlocked by playing the game, so it’s not just pick and choose. This is an advantage as it gives a great opportunity to customize the properties exactly as we want on the planet by finding new ones (three each for the frog and the robot). If a feature is found and it is better than what we already have, it is free to change. The problem, or disadvantage, is that it is entirely up to chance what can be used. If you are unlucky, there are only fairly useless traits and the various bosses become almost impossible to defeat. Or if we get surrounded by enemies right at the start and can only do a quick dash, it’s best to run like crazy from there. Death can come very quickly.
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Death is spreading across the planet and it is dark and gray. To save it, we have to meet the objective of that planet, which 99% of the time is to break three smaller pillars guarded by monsters and then break the big pillar. When a pillar is pulverized, the area around it becomes colorful and sunny again, which also means that monsters that enter it take damage. Like Dracula basically. Each planet has two or three levels and at the end of the last one a boss awaits. Defeat the boss and the entire planet is liberated. All this happens with unfortunately too repetitive gameplay. If you play by yourself, you play as both the frog and the robot at the same time, which brings its own difficulties. The frog’s weapon is usually, especially before better ones are unlocked, far too slow and imprecise to work against large numbers of enemies. The robot’s sword is therefore used far too much. It is possible to switch between the traits of both, but there is only one visual that shows the different traits and in the heat of battle there is no time to stop and think. It’s either going to be just four of all gunpowder at once or relying on a favorite trait.
Repetition is something that permeates the entire game, possibly befitting the genre, but I never found myself wanting to play for long periods of time as each planet just felt the same, aside from different looks. Also, almost all missions are the same, which doesn’t help. Overall, the look is a mixed bag. I’m not completely enamored with the graphic style, while I imagine others are. The character design is also usually quite boring. What saves the appearance is all the customization that can be done on the two playable characters. New colors can be unlocked, each core also changes the appearance to possibly a cannon on the robot and the weapons used also change the appearance. Along with all the different features, the customization possibilities are very large. It should also be said that the track design is good and varied.
This is a game that is better in multiplayer. It is possible to play offline with two players as each controls one of the two characters. This makes it easier to keep track of all the traits and to be able to focus only on either the gun shooting or the sword swinging. Where I think the game really shines though, and something I wasn’t able to test unfortunately, is online. There, up to four players can play together with their own frog and robot. Something that will certainly make the game less hectic.
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Shoulders of Giants is a perfectly okay sci-fi roguelike that has its major flaws. The great possibilities to customize your characters appearance and characteristics are the strong point of the game along with the fact that it is simply much more fun to play together with others. Also, it’s not a full-price game, so it might be something to check out if you’re into the genre, even though it’s not perfect.
