Gnome More War Switch Review – More Gnomes

Gnome More War, both developed and published by Keybol Games (who are behind other games like Kill the Plumber, Pretentious Game and the upcoming Jack Axe), is a sort of horizontal shoot ’em up game.

The premise is simple enough. Gnomes are sneaky little thieves that want to loot farmhouses and other places, and the best way to deal with them is to shoot as many as possible in the face. Or the parachutes if you’re looking for extra points. The story is told visually, in that you see a Gnome walk into a barn and then run away with some sort of loot. Characters then chase after them, and you are launched directly into the game from there. Luckily there is a brief tutorial that explains the controls before the gameplay starts.

The gameplay is fairly simple as well. You have a cart with your character and can move up and down with the analog stick or directional buttons. You can use the X button to increase your speed and the A button fires your weapon. The objective is to kill all of the Gnomes (which include ones that look like goblins and gryphons among others) or as many as possible before they either loot too much of your stuff or break your cart.

The game is played in waves, and each wave will have a certain number of Gnomes (visually depicted via a green bar in the top corner). Once the Gnomes have all finished their assaults, the wave is considered cleared, and you move to the next one. Completing five waves allows you to enter a preparation screen where you can customize your cart, install upgrades, and change your power-ups.

However, most of these will be locked and either need a lot of resources or completion of more levels to unlock.

The preparation page also has a map selection screen where you can select one of the levels to play through. However, if you complete five out of ten waves and then swap to another level, it will reset the wave count next time you return, so it’s best to try and play through an entire level before moving on.

Completing an entire level consists of beating or surviving all of the waves including the final boss wave which throws a much more powerful Gnome at you. Beating or simply surviving the boss will give you a map badge used to unlock other levels which generally will throw new obstacles (like boxes and barrels that protect enemies until destroyed) and new Gnomes at you.

The different Gnomes also change things up a fair bit, with the default ones essentially being targets to hit, followed by some that have shields to block once, some seemingly harmless builders until enough group together and make a cannon, flying squirrels that throw rocks at you, and plenty more.

In order to fight back, you can also pick up (by shooting) power-ups. There are two kinds: offensive (like three-way multi shots and fireballs that arc downward) and defensive (like cart healing and replenishing some lost barn loot).

In the preparation stage, you can select which one(s) to assign, and you can have up to three of each. Selecting the same one more than once increases the drop rate, and setting all three as the same option will mean it will exclusively drop. If you have two or three different options set then you can cycle them by shooting the power-up directly, and then shoot the balloon to collect it.

However, this is far easier said than done, especially when they get toward the ground as you cannot scroll all the way to the top or bottom of the screen, meaning that you’ll need to use an offensive special to hit things on the ground.

The game also has a co-op option where you can play with two players, and there are three characters to choose from. Each character has their own weapon which changes the animation on their shots, but I was unable to confirm if they had different strengths and weaknesses.

The same goes for the different carts. You can unlock them and visually change what they look like, but I’m not sure if they change the gameplay at all. I chose the boy character with the gun and unlocked the wooden barrel at the same time, so I’m not sure which one of them (maybe both) increased the number of bullets I could fire between reloads from three to four and randomly gave me a spread shot.

Overall, Gnome More War‘s gameplay does feel sort of samey after a little while, even with all the stuff being thrown at you. There is a lot of grinding going on, and it almost feels like a fun mobile game, except the five wave system does feel like it drags on a lot the more you play.

Gnome More War Review Provided By Nintendo Link
Developer: Keybol Games
Publisher: Keybol Games
Release Date: Oct 26, 2020
Price: $2.99, £2.29, €2,49
Game Size: 344 MB