Invisigun Reloaded (Nintendo Switch) Review

Comparisons to Bomberman are obvious. Playing much like these games, four players are placed into a single-screen level where they must kill each other with the last person standing winning the match. The large twist is that players start invisible. There is a balance between running around while hidden and then taking a careful shot to try to take someone out. Players stay invisible as long as they do not do a few key things: shoot, run into walls, or activate environmental objects.

Shooting will reveal a player for around two seconds, potentially allowing nearby players to come in and score a kill. Running into a wall does not reveal the player exactly but makes a bright coloured mark on the screen showing where someone is. Likewise, running into someone reveals both characters and stuns them for a second. Other things like running into birds will have them fly away or show footprints in water and so on.

Characters are placed and move on a strict grid system, meaning a single press of up or down makes the character go to that single tile. This might seem like an odd thing to mention as some games in fact do behave like this, but it has some consequences. Namely, it is an integral part to the game as a single square is the difference between life or death, or even giving away position.

There are some downsides with this, as it leads to an odd 'skill level' between players - those who count steps and those who do not. Say there is a wall three squares down, a careful player will tap down lightly three times, then count the steps they need to move right, then up and so on. This is what might be a type of high-level play, because without doing this will give away the player's position. As a result, it leads to an odd delineation as this was likely meant as a party game, but there will be that one player who has had more time with the game carefully counting steps and never revealing positions that take away some of the casual fun.

A single player mode focusing on each different character is fairly well done. Each 'quest' as the game calls them, are several different levels tailored to each different character. For the girl who can jump, the puzzles focus on tricky jumps and timing over obstacles. Other characters have to knock a ball into a hole or use long range attacks to trigger switches. For how different each character is, this section is really well done. Though many of the puzzles tend towards twitch-type timing and reflexes, it still is fun.

Overall, the concept is fun but a bit weighed down by its own gimmick. The rounds either end up being where no one really moves and it's just a quiet, somewhat boring round. Other times everyone is shooting, running and hitting things and mostly everyone is revealed anyway. The general pacing never leads to either very intense 1v1 matches or large-scale frantic fun. There is nothing majorly wrong with the game, but it never achieves highs like some other party games do.