Gauntlet Review and Impressions

While Arrowhead’s Gauntlet reboot was released yesterday, it looks like we’ll have to wait a little bit longer until the first proper wave of reviews comes out, but that’s not to say there are no articles about the final build of the title already available, like this 8/10 review from Shacknews:

Gauntlet is the perfect party game. It brings people together while tearing them apart. There’s fast action that’s easy to pick up for more casual players, and a decent selection of relics for players that want to make to experiment with ways to make their character an unstoppable loot grabbing killing machine. The online component could do use some improvement, specifically with the ability to rejoin an ongoing game. Although it isn’t as deep as other action role-playing games out there, its simplicity is a big part of its charm. It is the kind of game I find myself trying to talk my friends into playing so that we can confront the hordes, battle giant bosses, and fight over gold.

And this first impressions piece from Forbes’ contributor Erik Kain:

While the game is a cooperative dungeon crawler and loot plays a role, it plays nothing like Diablo or any of its clones. Moves are mapped to your gamepad (and it’s recommended you play with a gamepad rather than keyboard and mouse) and don’t change as you progress. There’s no comparable leveling or progression, but you can purchase relics and gear to power up your hero as you go.

…

Each class is fun to play and it’s fun to switch between them each time you play.

The game does some interesting things with level design also. There’s a dungeon where you fight through mobs of enemies while being pursued by Death. If you get too close to the Reaper you’ll die instantly. Locked walls bar your path and you have to take down stronger enemies to get the keys to progress. It’s a race against time and highly entertaining.