A roguelite that feels more like a wave-based game.

This generation of virtual reality (VR) seems to favour the rogue-styled games.

Just like the wave-based games which seemed to launch every other week, on older headsets like the original PlayStation VR (PSVR), these new ones seem to favour the dungeon-crawling “die and you restart” mechanics of the rogue-lite/like genre.

While this genre works well and – at least in theory – allows for a game to be replayable due to the randomness that makes each playthrough unique; if it’s not done well, you end up with a game that’s as bad and broken as The Foglands.

A new entry in the arena of roguelite games, Rogue Pinatas: VRMageddon by Nerd Ninjas, is an interesting game that pits you against living pinatas. The game launched on the Quest headsets March. 6.

The story, while very basic, tells the story of a party gone wrong and how a pinata horde has risen to, one can assume, take over the world.

You as the player, take on the role of one of six unique characters as you aim to take down the pinata mob and save the world.

Along the way, you’re given access to a unique swath of weapons – including ranged and melee – and numerous gadgets to make your game different each time.

Let’s start by talking about the basics.

When you launch the game, you’re treated to a brief synopsis of how you and the other “survivors” landed yourselves in this position. Once you understand that, you’re transported to your base of operations – a garage.

Here you can pick from one of six characters, each with their own unique starting weapons. Here you pick which of the six levels you intend to tackle, and can see the challenges that the game tasks you with completing. You’re also able to use items collected through your play to add permanent buffs to your character such as increased health, damage, and other perks to make you survive longer.

At the back of the garage you can see your stats, this can help you see how you’re doing – but mostly you can keep track of how many pinatas you’ve taken down with specific weapons, since this is currently the only way you can unlock new characters.

This method of gaining access to new characters can only be done by playing a lot, however, if you’re someone who hates games that force grinding, you may be put off by this. More on this downside later.

Playing a game such as this is fairly straightforward: once you’re in a level, you need to take down as many pinatas as you can. Doing so, alongside completing tasks, will make the boss appear. And of course, taking them down completes the level.

To last this long, you need to be smart about what you do. At many points throughout your play, you’ll feel massively overwhelmed by the pinatas you take down, only by consistently moving and upgrading your weapons, will you survive. In order to make yourself better, you need to level up. In this game, you collect the candy which comes from fallen enemies.

Collecting candy will raise the meter on you heads up display, each time you collect enough to fill the meter, you’re allowed to pick one of three perks. These vary from weapons that you can swap through – and corresponding upgrades to these weapons – to gadgets that give your character upgrades like movement speed, damage, and even health regeneration.

You can upgrade your character based on your playstyle, but remember, sometimes you are only offered a certain perk once, so passing up a new weapon for a gadget that collects candy, may spell trouble down the line.

Now let’s talk about some of the flaws of this pinata bashing VR game.

Firstly – and probably the foremost issue you’ll notice – there are so many enemies.

Generally when you’re playing a game in this genre, you face a handful of enemies on each level – and usually the “random level generation” touted by these types of games means that each time you enter a level, means that you’ll either have to navigate through rooms that are different, have enemies at different spots, or some combination, in each new run.

This game doesn’t really have that.

Instead, you’re given the ability to roam around giant maps where the enemies are essentially endless. This game seems more like a wave “shooter,” with elements of roguelite built in, because you seem to face onslaughts of large waves of pinatas which only end when the boss is no more.

Because of the way the game is built, it does seem to get rather boring – and quickly. You can only swing a bat or shoot a strangely built “gun” at a never-ending mob of pinatas before it becomes tedious work. Add in the fact that you only get one starting weapon – and need to grind to unlock new characters – and the game may turn off a few enthusiasts.

Oh, you can only ever go into a game with the weapon your character starts with. You can only access new weapons via levelling up.

Touching on the grind again… well, there’s a lot of it here.

You start with one character – who has one weapon – and you must work to unlock some of the remaining characters. The way to do this though? You must first gain access to the new characters respective weapons via a level-up perk, then you need to vanquish pinatas. In early testing, you could only access one out of the six new characters, with the rest needing to be unlocked by taking down 1,000 pinatas.

Seems easy right…

Some weapons appear more frequently than others, while some take numerous runs or even newly unlocked levels to appear. Even then, the majority of weapons are vastly underpowered, and take many shots for even a basic enemy.

Now that the game has launched it looks like the developers have limited the grinding a little, because five of the characters are now unlocked. They could have lowered the number of pinatas you need to beat, but it is just as likely that they decided to give you access to more characters early on.

Oh, another issue with ranged weapons is that there’s no sights on them. This means that you need to figure out how to aim and hope for the best – more often than not, you’re going to be missing some shots. Plus, there’s a lot of janky play in the pre-release build – weapons colliding, or getting weirdly stuck – that makes things just a little off-putting.

Quickly let’s talk about graphics and gameplay: honestly it’s just ok.

Graphically, the game is middle of the road, the pinatas look meh, and the world around you is varying degrees of middling. You’re not getting the greatest of graphics here – and you’ll probably notice framerate issues – or enemies in the not-so-far distance seemingly appearing out of nowhere.

As mentioned above, you may also run into issue where your weapons just look wonky, jutting out at all angles, or even getting randomly stuck. This could be a pre day-one patch issue, but who knows.

Overall, this game is a very cumbersome VR entry which makes the roguelite genre look a little different – and not in a good way. VRmageddon is a wave based game with roguelite twists, and this is a distinction that changes the whole dynamic.

If you’re up for running around taking down many different types of enemies – with weapons that need a lot of grinding to be upgraded – then you may actually enjoy this experience. However, if you’re looking for a proper roguelite/like experience in VR, go for something like The Light Brigade, Sweet Surrender, or even the mixed reality game Crumbling which has you take control of toys in a diorama setting.

This game just doesn’t do enough to keep you engaged.

Rogue Pinatas: VRmageddon was reviewed on the Quest 3 after receiving pre-release access.