Over the years, I’ve played dozens of VR shooters just like Harpagun but none nearly this charming or fun. Borrowing loosely on the premise of Time Crisis or any of those arcade light gun games, you’ll be playing a space scavenger on a rescue mission to save one of their missing crew, as you explore a futuristic abandoned Earth teaming with aliens awaiting your response.
Those arm cannons aren’t just from looks, as you dual wield energy blades, blasters, and this cool magnet tether that lets you manipulate object around the environment. Sometimes you just need to toss a log or rock out of the way but you can also trigger other items and fatality events like sending a tractor rolling across swarming aliens.
Comfort is king with the node-based gameplay in Harpagun, and a push of the stick will smoothly move you to the nearest node in that direction. From each node you can stand your ground and fight or move to another connected node. While this may seem limiting at first, the developers were clever to put additional nodes into the flow so you can sidestep and avoid incoming alien attacks. My only quibble with the game is that the camera is always adjusting itself after reaching the next node, so I was always having to readjust.
Aliens are crazy and diverse, both in appearance and tactics. You have these little critters that look like white Hershey’s Kisses with spider legs, and then these other pod creatures that shoot at you not to mention larger mid-size and screen-filling bosses. It’s all about target priority and skillfully dodging shots while weapons cool down then blasting away. It’s a satisfying experience bringing back fond memories of those light gun games from yesteryear.
I really enjoyed the visuals which was a unique mix of Rick and Morty and Borderlands. Everything is stylishly simple yet loaded with smooth animations and subtle details. At times it feels like you are playing a cartoon. There is some great voice work for the narrator and some surprisingly awesome sound effects and a funky soundtrack you’ll be humming long after you take off the headset.
Once you have unlocked the stages in Story mode you can then try them out in Arcade and Arena modes, adding even more gameplay to the mix. In all, I got about 6-8 hours of joyful combat and alien destruction from the story and some dabbling in the other modes. There are a few choke points where I seemed to die endlessly, but the game is great about checkpoints, and enemies spawn in the same patterns so you can learn by dying. There are a lot of shooters out there but not many that are as entertaining as Harpagun. Definitely give this one a shot.
