As any long-time follower of the channel will know, if you’re talking roguelikes I’m already interested, and if you follow that up with twin-stick shooters I’m generally all in. There’s just something I love about being able to turn my active brain off and tackle swarms of enemies, blowing them all away. The problem is, considering that there are some fantastic ones already out there, you can’t be showing up to the eShop without putting your best foot forward and expect not to get called out.

Unfortunately, The Legend of Cyber Cowboy squarely falls into that camp… with myriad problems that hold it back first from being average, but then that drag it down into being mediocre at best. The first problem is simply the anemic pacing, with your rate of fire at a slow metronome-like pace, and your character’s movement being similarly slothsome. The next issue is that everything on the screen from the characters to the bullets themselves are chunky, and when you combine this with the slow rate of speed, not even your dash can help you in situations like boss fights when you really need to be more nimble in order to be successful. The last is that I really dislike that many areas need to scroll in order to see them all, making you vulnerable to being shot from off-screen, and issues as you approach the edge of sometimes simply running right into enemies you can’t see.

Outside of those pretty fundamental core mechanical complaints, there’s then the problem of a severe lack of variety. There simply aren’t enough types of guns, or anything else that injects any given run with a sense of discovery or excitement. It doesn’t take long at all to feel like there’s simply not much here to enjoy, and despite its budget price there are simply far better games out there in the eShop that aren’t much more expensive, or that can be even cheaper on a sale, so this comes up quite short on reasons to give it more than a cursory glance.