ProtoCorgi Review

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Fast Facts

Cuter than a Typical Shooter

ProtoCorgi is a visually appealing shoot-em-up featuring a Corgi and many enemies to dismantle. The game initially appealed to me because of its cute art style. However, I also liked that the title looked relatively easy. Specifically, attack patterns were clear in the trailer. Did ProtoCorgi maintain my initial excitement throughout my playthrough? Find out in this Rapid Review.

To begin the game, I was shown a brief animated cutscene that showed how I got activated and a vague showing of my task. This was nice and provided some detail about my objective, but it was not revolutionary. There was no dialogue and honestly the story as a whole did not do much other than set up the premise of the game. Still, the animated scene was visually enjoyable. 

The same thing goes for the general theming. There are some stunning enemy and boss designs. However, they do not work together to tell much of a story. Bosses are sometimes completely different from the enemies that surround them. This makes them interesting and unique but also makes each fight less dramatic, as there is not much of a buildup to each of these bosses. Quite frankly, story and theming are not reasons I play shoot-em-ups, so I was not bothered by this. However, it is important to note that ProtoCorgi is not a narratively focused title, and there is little done to create an extensive world here.

Shooting and Soaring

The primary gameplay loop on the other hand is far more important. Thankfully, I enjoyed playing through ProtoCorgi. However, it is an incredibly simple formula. I simply shoot at enemies in an attempt to raise my high score. If I make it far enough, I could beat the game too. However, while this system has been seen before, ProtoCorgi does something I have not seen. As I spent more time with the game, I earned additional continues and lives. This meant that playing more improved my ability to survive both in knowledge and in innate strength. This was a great system, and it rewarded me for playing the game. Moreover, it helped me gauge an adequate number of continues to use on any given playthrough. This made completing ProtoCorgi feel rewarding even when I continued. 

However, while I truly enjoyed this system, this was not made immediately clear to me. I had no idea that I could even unlock continues and lives until I did. Thus, I found myself getting discouraged at the beginning of my playthrough. While I do not think it is necessarily vital for the developers to include this information in their tutorial, I can see why people who are more focused on playing a cute shoot-em-up could be frustrated. Though more transparency could be appreciated, I think this system works well as a whole. 

Fighting for the World

Regardless of the continues and lives, I thought ProtoCorgi had a great sense of difficulty. Largely, enemies telegraphed their attacks and took an appropriate amount of damage from my attacks. Plus, my hitbox was a great size to make the game engaging, but not too tough. The enemies were nicely balanced. The enemies are also fun to dismantle. Each of the foes looks unique, but more importantly, they attack in distinct ways. Encountering new enemies made ProtoCorgi a lot of fun to explore.

This was most evident in the game’s boss fights. There are a plethora of engaging bosses that are tons of fun to take on. Each of them is wholly unique, and they stand out from the other enemies with their scale and complexity. These fights are rewarding too. Bosses also telegraph their attacks and weak points nicely, making each encounter engaging. I enjoyed one aspect of these fights in particular. Each fight can be competed passively by waiting for a timer to expire. Though this somewhat trivializes some of these encounters, providing multiple ways to play these engagements is an excellent way to encourage replayability. 

However, despite how fun many of the bosses can be to revisit, many of the basic sections are a bit tedious. Since there are always limited continues, I constantly had to replay the game from the beginning. This makes those areas far more boring, especially after a few playthroughs. This is largely because some of the areas are significantly less challenging than other sections. Some of the sections do not have enemies at all and serve as brief resting places. Upon my later playthroughs, I found these sections to be incredibly boring, as I already knew what was incoming. Many of the game’s slower sections became tedious after multiple playthroughs. 

Running it Back

Many of the things in the game became a bit less special after multiple playthroughs. This also applied to the weaponry I could wield. Along my journey, I picked up augments that gave me new unique attacks. I could wield a variety of rockets, lasers, and bones. Though these weapons were neat when I started with the game, after a few playthroughs, I had become so familiar with them that they were nothing special. There was a fairly small pool of available weapons, and it seemed like the same ones were available in the same places too. It made acquiring them feel bland. Still, the weapons do shoot, and uncovering them is a simple system that works well.

On the other hand, despite revisiting many stages many times, the sound design did not stale. The music in ProtoCorgi is nice. It is calming when appropriate yet ramps up the energy in frantic scenarios. The soundtrack never distracted me either. It sounded good, looped well, and kept me engaged. 

I also thought the art style was great. Though a few times I missed some bullets due to the chaos on screen, as a whole, everything is clear, the enemy designs are appealing, and the background designs are beautiful. The visuals are cute and honestly exceeded my expectations. As a whole, ProtoCorgi is a very solid game. I think it provides an ample amount of content. Plus, that content kept me engaged, and I felt rewarded throughout my journey. Since I had to replay sections multiple times, I found some minor frustrations, but as a whole, ProtoCorgi is a game I can recommend, even to novice shoot-em-up fans.

Rapid Reviews Rating

4 out of 5

4

You can purchase ProtoCorgi on the Nintendo eShop here.