A pretty great tactical RPG (or XCOM clone if thats how you know them) that manages to hold onto a great style, good music, and fantastic technical design in its levels, enemy mechanics, weapons and abilities. A polished affair that only lacks lip syncing, really. The linear method of progression may be offputting to some but it really enraptured me - the pacing is top notch with adequate spacing between down time and combat segments and the voice acting (as well as the ambient writing for the announcer) is all fantastic and entertaining. The combat is meaty, bloody, and VERY satisfying. The open world puzzles are more hit or miss (some moon logic will absolutely nuke an Ironman mode playthrough unless you have played through it before) and the DLC adds some long, fantastic fights and a cool enemy. I cannot stress enough how fully realized the art, music, and ambiance in general feels. Some stuff isn't what I personally enjoy (mostly weapon designs) but even when it isn't I can see what they went for and they knocked it out of the park.

The biggest downside to Showgunners is its story. The concept of The Running Man style game show rules, as do pretty much every character except the "main two." Tybalt and Scarlett just kinda suck. They're nowhere near as interesting as the other companion characters and Tybalt is only brought down because he's such a package deal with Scarlett. Scarlett's motivations are played-out and boring, her visual design is god-awful, and she comes off as genuinely repellent to the concept of compelling writing. The fact that Showgunners provides us with a big, beautiful universe that's bustin' with style and pizzazz but the entire central conceit of the story is some one-note growling genderswapped male protagonist from 2010's gaming? Its bad. Its just so bad. There could have been so much more fun in the story and characters if it wasn't absolutely obsessed with the most hackneyed "obviously we the people making the game disapprove of blood sports!" style writing I'd expect in a high schooler's short story. Painfully childish, I really hope that the studio working on this takes this as me - an adult - not being satisfied and, y'know... works to improve on their next project. I'm only as disappointed as I am because everything ELSE is so fantastic.

Overall if you enjoy tactical RPGs you should very much look into this game. It has a good, solid 20 hours if you do every little bit of Showgunners and in the end I left feeling satisfied in a way a lot of modern games don't let you be. I almost regret buying it on sale because I really do feel the developers deserve every penny they ask for on this one.

Most definitely a thumbs up from me. The premise is it's like the running man, only you signed up to bust heads. Really enjoyed this game. The combat, the universe, the story, the voice acting, everything was really enjoyable. Gonna keep an eye out on what Artificer works on next cause this was a great game.

Amazing concept, awesome trpg.

8/10

Underrated