XBOX REVIEW | Peglin

I already played quite a lot of Peglin on PC, even before it release. I was part of an indiegame jury and had Peglin as one of my top picks, then I played a lot more when it released on Steam and now with Xbox achievements as an extra motivation, it’s even harder to put down.

This game sure has balls, making me invest so much time in shooting… balls.

Things I liked!

• Peggle is back, kinda! | I didn’t realize how much I missed the simple concept of Peggle’s gameplay, and Peglin adds a ton of roguelike replayability on top. I do have to admit that playing it on PC was a lot easier because you can just click where you want the ball to land, versus the kind of funky radial control with the analog stick on Xbox. But it’s so satisfying seeing a combo go off, getting a lucky hit and dishing out even more damage than you were expecting.

• Tons of content | The roguelike impact comes into play through every element of the game. You can buy new balls, each with their own stats and special abilities, you can earn new artifacts with passive modifiers, you can impact the board with increased bombs or critical hits and there are tons of dedicated builds giving you a lot of freedom in how you want to approach each run.

• Moving around | whenever you complete a point on the map you can kinda choose where to go next in the branching path, but that’s also done by shooting a ball into the correct pit at the bottom, which can randomly turn out to not be the one you intended. This kind of random effect in the game at every point does keep you guessing all the time, you’ll rarely feel like you’ve broken the game or have things all figured out.

• Interesting bosses | The highlights for me are the bosses at the end of every level, they pack a punch and have various abilities that make your life hard, so you better come prepared with a ton of upgrades of your own. getting stuck facing a specific boss with a specific build can ruin a run though, so make sure to plan ahead.

• Runs are the perfect length | a complete run usually takes me around 30 minutes, making this a perfect pick up and play game. It’s currently the game I play before going to bed every night, just with the added risk of dreaming of bouncing balls.

Mixed & disliked!

• Progression between games | I miss having some kind of permanent upgrades between games to make next runs easier and to entice me to play the harder challenges. Everything you earn in the game is only kept for that specific run, other than some info in a bestiary that fills verrrry slowly.

• UI/UX | It’s an xbox port, but it’s hard to navigate around menus. Especially when you’re creating custom games with your own set of rules and presets: the interface for this is abysmal and really hard to click around in.

• Minor bugs | I had some minor display bugs here and there, like seeing a ball evolve to lvl 17 or so in a prompt (it was of a type that can be lvled as many times as you want), getting super excited about this broken possibility, and then playing the next round and seeing it just went from lvl 2 to lvl 3.

• Too many end-game achievements | A lot of the achievements are locked behind playing the most difficult tiers, with various handicaps working against you, and I’ve never found it a lot of fun to make a run more difficult than it should be. For some players though, this may be a huge upside, offering them even more challenge. For me, too many of them seem forever out of reach.

How long did I play the review before publishing? 8hours
How long to beat the story? 30-45 minutes for a single run
How many Achievements did I earn before publishing? 19/48 or 335/1000G
How long to achieve 1000G | probably around 20-30 hours
You’ll love this game if you like these | Peggle, Balatro, Vampire Survivors

CONCLUSION

Score: 77/100

The Xbox port of Peglin might drop the ball in a few places, but it’s definitely high on the fun scale. Even long after playing, I can still see balls bouncing around in my head, so be wary of its lasting effects on your dopamine-hungry brain!