There’s no doubt that from the original video that introduced the Switch, and it being designed for local multiplayer gaming right out of the box, Nintendo created a bit of a monster. While solo and online gaming are absolutely well represented on the system, in particular on the indie side of the market there has been an avalanche of local multiplayer action games, which have often varied quite wildly in quality. Now, nearly 7 years later, if you’re going to release such a game on the system it would behoove you to come in with your best efforts. Unfortunately, whether it had higher aspirations or not, Bullion instead struggles.

With your options spanning a small number of modes, and then a handful of both maps and characters to play as, right out of the gate this offering feels a bit thin. The action is a bit of a hot mess, but on a general level your goals are to roam around the small areas, try to break into chests, grab some loot and power-ups, and then fight off your “friends” as you all try to do the best job of fulfilling the mode’s requirements. Though honestly, regardless of the mode, play just feels like it quickly devolves into a mess of random attacking and hoping for the best.

One major obstacle to greater success is that mechanically the controls, and your attacks, feel sloppy and sort of unpredictable as you and the other players try to attack one another. Whether you’ll be able to pull off a combo in full, or get smacked around by the other players, feels a bit like a coin flip, and given how zoomed out the action often is, mixed with the isometric view, being properly lined up can be tricky. This can make your best strategy often feel like avoiding conflict as much as possible and hoping to fade into the background as everyone else fights amongst themselves. As mentioned, the view can really be an issue as the camera pulls out to be sure everyone remains visible at once, making it a challenge to make out many details of your battles, making engaging in combat with others frustrating at times.

Put it all together and this local multiplayer action experience doesn’t even reach the mid-tier of its competition, most of which are at least more sound in terms of both their controls and overall implementation. The thing is, even if you improved the controls and the pulled out view, it feels as if the overall play experience would still be quite bland and easy to abandon in hopes of finding something better.