Earth is under attack by giant evil bugs and other alien creatures. They swarm the planet en masse, converging unto a single point—a giant laser cannon that could threaten their invasion of this lowly planet. While this humanity-saving weapon charges up, we’re left with the only lady with the cojones who can protect this cannon and the populace as a whole: welcome to developer NANAIRO ENTERPRISE and publisher DANGEN Entertainment’s ‘TurretGirls’, a roguelike, on-rails shooter where players take on the role of the titular “Girl” as she quite literally carries the weight of the world on her back (amongst a litany of random inner thoughts she’ll verbalise during your time as an alien-crushing machine.
TurretGirls is a simple game. Matter of fact, there’s no company logo or introduction or anything of the sort. Girl stands at the main menu, where we either hop straight into battle, muck with the options, check out the credits, and close the game. Naturally, we’re here to play a game, so clicking Battle Start takes us to a set up menu where we can select our starting weapon and Girl’s clothing, which range from her adorable little bowtie atop her head all the way down to the… Finer aspects of one’s business. Make no mistake, TurretGirls is a “gentleman’s game” and Girl has no qualms with showing off the kind of person she is underneath her jacket.
But we can touch more on that later. Right now, there’s loads of aliens coming and we need to defend our generators. Across the game’s three stages, players will begin each round by defending two generators and killing as many aliens as they can before the day (re: round) ends. Each round begins with Girl’s default weapon and two generators. Enemies will pour in from all fronts, but the battlefield itself is split into two zones—the forefront attacking foes that can actually damage your generators and the background enemies that simply exist to help you increase your kill count.
The more baddies you kill, the more money you can make. Perks you purchase after a round is completed can help you make more money, but we can also purchase many more things here such as weapons and more generators to keep our run going and to fill the laser cannon’s charge meter that much quicker.
TurretGirls is easy to pick up and play and I think one of its best aspects is how good of a job it does denoting which enemies are lethal to your generators, Girl, and both. From what I gathered, enemies are colour-coded to their threat type, with red enemies solely bum-rushing your turrets, yellow enemies hurrying to undress Girl, and blue baddies trying all their might to end your game with the quickness. As you’ve likely surmised, besides the turrets you’ll also need to worry about Girl’s health (might as well consider her mental state, too). As she takes damage, she’ll lose clothing and bare herself to the player in the process—lose too much and she’ll be stripped of her will to live, so watch out!
Girl’s health does not replenish between rounds and she will only put on a new set of clothing if you purchase the rather pricey heal perk if it pops up for you. Speaking of which, early on money will be a bit of an issue as you’ll have to carefully decide between weapons to better keep the baddies at bay and perks that can make life easier. I’ll be honest, I’m concerned Girl is doing all of this for free seeing as budgeting apparently also falls on her and whoever is providing the funding appears to be incredibly stingy. It always feels like new weapon upgrades or generators are a few short dollars out of reach, and being short a few dollary-doos can be the difference between a failed run and a successful one.
On the bright side, even if you lose a run, it levels up the initial weapon you selected at set up. The more levelled up a weapon is, the more perks you start off with at the beginning which helps with consecutive runs. Power to the roguelike!
TurretGirls is oddly addicting. For what its worth, you’ve seen everything this game has to offer within the first 30 minutes (besides unlocked clothing bits). And it’s not like the gameplay is very meaty or features tight controls; while the movement across the rail is weighty and smooth, the actual shooting is very lacking. It’s not so much that you’ll be holding down only the “shoot” button and clearing baddies out, but it’s not particularly satisfying to do so due to how smooth the camera’s movements feel and due to a lack of feedback upon contact. End game runs essentially become a goose chase of swinging back and forth between generators and slashing slash blowing up baddies with not much more to show for it than the blood splattering about.
And yet I spent hours doing just that. It’s quite nice, being able to jump in and shred up aliens right away without being inundated with hours of text just to set up why Girl insists on protecting humanity herself, why her benefactors are a bunch’a cheapskates, and why these aliens insist on attacking Earth every day for a grand total of a minute at maximum. It’s good, simple fun and we’re all here to cheer Girl on and, if anything, intently watch as she fails to keep the buggers off of her. TurretGirls scratches that cheap arcade itch that’s been somewhat missing from gaming these last couple of years—you’ll know it’s for you right from the onset. ◼
TurretGirls is available on PC via Steam/GOG/itch.io.
TurretGirls
Played on
Windows 11 PC
PROS
- Good, simple on-rails fun.
- Enemies are cleanly differentiated between one another and their environment.
- Solid weapon and clothing variety.
- Girl is too good for this world.
CONS
- The actual shooting mechanics are unsatisfying.
- You'll see everything within the first half-hour.
