Wild Bastards - Switch Review

Leigh Wynne -

Time to saddle up and lead the charge across the galaxy in this FPS/turned-based strategic hybrid. Wild Bastards has you play as 13 outrageous outlaws, each with their own unique signature abilities and upgrades. While visiting new planets in the turn-based portion of the game, discover new loot, new enemies, and unique shoot-out moments as you gain infamy and secure your escape route before the cavalry arrives. 

Wild Bastards is a spiritual successor to Void Bastards, which debuted on the Nintendo Switch back in 2020. It was a tale about surviving in the Sargasso Nebula by travelling through the void of space, boarding different abandoned spaceships, looting the remaining scraps left, and fighting anything that was still alive inside. Die and you would lose all your loot and begin again from the beginning in typical rougelike fashion, and now, after four long years, Wild Bastards has eventually arrived on the Nintendo Switch for another shot at a rougelike title with some extra bells and whistles, but does it deliver?

The Good

The focus of Wild Bastards is to travel across multiple galaxies, visiting new planets, and rescuing your fallen crew. Once you’ve entered a new planet, the viewpoint will become isometric, with a number of enemy checkpoints, shops, and hazards set along a map that you can travel on. You’ll have a set number of turns to move across the map before night falls and before a powerful villain appears to take you down. You’ll be picking up loot along the way and finding a “jump-lock” to secure your escape, which is normally hidden behind enemy lines. After exceeding your turns, if there’s any enemy patrols on the map, they will take a turn while you have to wait, and it will process like this until you reach an enemy checkpoint or escape. In certain incidents, you may become separated from your teammates and may have to relocate them on the map before being able to use them again. 

However, if you reach a checkpoint on the map, a shootout will occur. Switching to a first-person shooter where your aim is to kill all the enemies within the area to escape. It's here where the game, in my opinion, becomes challenging and calls back to the fun I used to have in Void Bastards; it also allows your characters to show off their individual abilities and gunplay; there are many different locations and enemies to fight in these stand-offs! Though I did find some of the abilities to be a little lacking, I think a little more creativity could have been used in these incidents. 

You’ll only have access to two characters at the beginning of the game: Spider Rosa, who is a four-arm chick with a sassy personality and two kick-ass revolvers, and Doc Casino, who wields a shotgun called “the kicker,” which has a random card effect for each battle. There’s a total of 13 outlaws, each as outrageous as the last, such as “The Judge,” a Clint Eastwood robot sort of fellow with a rifle that has a high crit-rate, instant kill execution after a set number of shots have been fired, or Smoky, the cook who loves beans and barbecuing his enemies with his skinnin sauce fireballs. Each character has been crafted exquisitely with a quirky personality thanks to some great voice acting throughout and their unique way to kill. I love the character designs in Wild Bastards as all so unique. 

To unlock these and more, you’ll need to progress through each galaxy map and retrieve your fallen allies coffin’s called the “helix” to unlock them as playable characters for the rest of your run, which gives an incentive to keep playing.

TL;DR

  • Great gameplay loop
  • Challenging shootouts
  • Creative character designs

The Bad

I had an issue with the cel-shaded graphics in certain places in Wild Bastards; some of the night stages in shoot-outs were really hard to see enemy placement. Even though you could listen out for them, it was hard to get a precise location in very dark areas. This was due to the black-shaded backgrounds and poor-drawn distance, making seeing anything in the distance during night time a complete nightmare. 

I also wasn't really blown away by the turn-based sections of the game; they didn't feel strategic at all. You would simply move from one place to another, gather loot, and fight enemies in shootouts, apart from hindering enemy checkpoints with certain environmental hazards or adding bonuses to them to help you out in advance. I couldn't really see the point of their inclusion. I would have preferred them to be ditched all together in favour of a traditional rouge-like shooter like Void Bastards. 

While I did enjoy the shootouts somewhat, they weren't particularly memorable. Hiding behind cover, shooting at enemies is hardly exciting, and when I got lucky and discovered juice pick-up, you could use your special abilities, though again, it wasn't a standout moment, and I did feel like something was missing; there was no urgency or thrilling action it, all felt very by numbers and simplistic to its detriment.

TL;DR

  • Cel-shading issues
  • Turn-based maps are boring
  • Shootouts aren't very thrilling

Final Score: 5/10

So my favourite things in Wild Bastards were the 13 playable characters and their unique designs and quirky personalities. But sadly, Wild Basterds doesn't quite reach the heights Void Bastards did. The shoot-out sections were okay, but the less than stellar turn-based sections just weren't a great inclusion or idea in my opinion... If you want a fantastic rouge-like gem, go play Void Bastards instead; it's priced the same; enjoy it hell of a lot more than this! 

Thank you for checking out our Wild Bastards Switch review, thank you to Maximum Entertainment (via Tinsley PR) for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support: