A quick one for y’all today, but I’ve gotten my hands on Lucky Shot, and it had me hooked right from the description alone. A roguelite FPS where you essentially play the equivalent of a light gun arcade game with lots of crazy modifiers? Sign me up!
I’ve played the game for several hours and continue to enjoy it as we speak, and here are my thoughts on it so far.
NOTE: Full disclosure, I received a review copy of the game, though I would’ve definitely bought it already had I known about it beforehand!
You Read the Title Right
Yup, Lucky Shot is quite literally just like Aimlabs mixed with Balatro‘s mechanics, minus the poker hands. More specifically, it’s like Aimlabs‘ Gridshot mode on crack, coupled with a lot of thoughtful special bullets and modifiers that you can stack up to get a ridiculous amount of points.
For the uninitiated, what this means is that you’re presented with a bunch of targets that appear and fly around for a few seconds before disappearing. You have to shoot them before they go away, and each miss reduces your score.
It’s an extremely simple premise that quickly devolves into chaos once you reach your first shop screen. There are a ton of varying items that change how targets and even your bullets work, and there are optional challenges you can turn on with each round that pump up the difficulty in exchange for useful rewards.
Beginner-Friendly Mechanics
Now I’m no slouch when it comes to FPS games, as you’ll probably know if you’ve been following me for a while now. Just peep my coverage of Fragpunk and Marvel Rivals, or this old gameplay video of Apex Legends I have lying around (literally called “silver2plat.mp4” cause I made these at the start of every season lol):
With that in mind, I didn’t struggle at all with this game and actually cleared my first ever run with ease. It had me wondering, though, how would the average player fare with the game’s quick pace? Well, I think you’ll be just fine even if you’re just a very casual FPS player.
Barring any optional challenges that make targets smaller, anything you need to shoot is going to be big enough that you’re guaranteed to hit a whole bunch of them with little effort. The various score modifiers, special bullets, and different target types will also help compensate for any aim issues.
You’ve got ricocheting bullets, splash damage, freezing powers that make it impossible to miss, and so many other ways to help you land as many shots as possible. With the right upgrades, it only takes a few hits to score millions, and I’m not even exaggerating with that number.
A Banging Time Sink
I honestly don’t have much else to say about the game due to its simplistic nature. Despite having a lot of modifiers, it’s basically a target practice range with a lot of dopamine-inducing score drops.
It’s an amazing time killer for those who love playing FPS games, and you may as well use it to warm up for competitive shooters instead of playing plain old aim trainers. It even has a few nods to other iconic games, including a hilariously obvious Dust 2 homage.
The gameplay’s simple but solid, audio and animations feel punchy, and the loop is predictably addicting. I’m going to continue playing this every now and then, especially now that I’m slowly getting pulled back into the FPS genre.