Guns of Mercy: Rangers Edition (Nintendo Switch)

Guns of Mercy is here to give you a healthy solid dose of that retro action you’ve been craving. Will Guns of Mercy be like its namesake or is it all business?.

Guns of Mercy started out life as a mobile game, even before looking into the title I had an inkling from how the game played. Now, this isn’t an instant slight on the game, you’ll get instantly sucked into the game and everything here is designed to be rewarding and get you craving to play more. 

Now in a previous review, I mentioned a game looking like an “Amiga title”, Guns of Mercy 110% nails the Amiga nostalgia look for me. While back in “the day” some titles would cross-platform but maintain a look (First Samurai or Ultracore{link review}), Guns of Mercy looks like it was lovingly scooped up from the cradle of the floppy disk giants’ arms and put into download form for my Switch.

Everything from the sound effects to the music and varied color pallet and 16-bit visuals just endeared me to this title. I will say on that front it may not be up to everyone’s tastes but retro enthusiasts will get several kicks out of presentation and audio alone.

So Guns of Mercy: Rangers Edition takes a successful mobile game, adds all the paywalled content, and does a little balancing to make it feel more substantial, and quite frankly it works. 

Guns of Mercy involves you picking one of the “Rangers” and making your way down a cave via and handy Elevator. You stop at each floor and cleanse it of alien scum in hopes you can make it habitable. There isn’t much narrative here, it’s needed and I’m thankful it wasn’t tacked on. 

When you’re on the floors your ranger automatically fires and it’s down to you to aim and control them to destroy enemies, collect items and avoid death, often not too far behind!.

You’ll collect squares which boost your points, petrol cans for your fuel meter, turrets and the most important Gems, these are the currency involved with upgrading your ranger. 

When your fuel meter reaches 100% you can summon a Mech suit which makes short work of any floor you are currently on, very handy in a pickle.

The gameplay feels very similar to Space Invaders/Centipede style where you are stuck going left and right while enemies descend. Very very old school, initially jarring but after a few floors, you’ll be more focused on racking up that high score and saving the day then extra dimensions of travel.

I love Guns of Mercy but it never quite shakes the shackles of its mobile lineage. The Gem currency and rather simple gameplay loop are key offenders of this. On the plus side, it’s a fun, addictive, and cheap time, something you can go back to time and time again and the Nintendo Switch is the ideal console for it.