The Playstation 4 side-scrolling shooter Resogun is at times frustratingly difficult but feels very rewarding when you finally accomplish a personal task, whether it was to save all humans, get a certain score, or just beating a boss that was kicking your ass.

Resogun is a 2014 side-scrolling shooter, it is developed by Housemarque & published by SCE. It is available exclusively on the Playstation 4.

The goal in Resogun is simple, attempt to save the last humans (about 8 if I’m not mistaken) and defeat the boss. Along the way you receive power ups that give your ship big advantages as wave after wave of enemies come towards you. Don’t think these advantages makes killing the enemy ships any easier for you, because if you do, then you’re in for a world of hurt and frustration. No matter how you strategize or maneuver around the area enemies will almost always have a way of killing you depending on the numbers. That’s one thing that makes Resogun so much fun, and oh so frustrating.

An example of an onslaught of enemy ships and fire aiming for the player.

THE GOOD: Resogun is a definite must play for those who are fans of games with Dark Souls levels of difficulty. I won’t lie, dying all the time in Resogun isn’t always fun, but when you succeed in whatever it was you were trying to accomplish an overwhelming sense of joy flows through you knowing you conquered something that almost made you wanting to break whatever the hell was in grabbing distance for your arms & rage. The music came off as a high pitch techno type vibe, while not a fan of techno myself I never found this annoying. In fact I actually enjoyed Resogun’s OST, it was very well composed for an fast paced action game.

A player rescuing a human from a wave of enemies.

Each level has three stages that players must complete in order to move up to the boss. It’s nothing more than killing all of the enemies for said stage, it would have been more fun if there were certain tasks you had complete as well. There’s a lot of power ups included in Resogun, but although they definitely help the good thing is it never feels one-sided no matter how many power ups your ship manages to get. One of the coolest power ups is the bomb, a weapon that goes across the entire area killing whatever enemy ships are out in the open. Another fun power up is the Overdrive, which kills multiple enemies in one mighty beam of energy, however you can’t use Overdrive until you kill a certain amount of enemies and collect their remains over time.

The three ships of Resogun, my personal favorite was Ferox due to it’s balance in stats.

THE BAD: While fun, Resogun is extremely challenging to the point of wanting to pull your own hair out depending on the level or task you’re trying to complete. I also felt cheated when it came to trying to save every last human sometimes, especially in the final level. There’s almost literally no way of getting around a way to save the last human during the closing moments of level five.

One of Resogun’s boss fights.

THE UGLY: It’s too damn short! Seriously, Resogun only features five levels and two modes which is fairly disappointing because it;s such an enjoyable game.

The Overdrive in action.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Resogun is a fun game with an fantastic soundtrack, but the challenge the game brings will frustrate players. With a ton of power ups at the player’s disposal it gives for a lot of different strategies, however these never change the level in difficulty too much, which is a good thing. The game is too short however, only giving us three ships, two modes, and five levels to work with.