While in the early days of the Switch challenging games were a little less common, with some standouts like Super Meat Boy and Darkest Dungeon at the front of the pack, in the past few years they’ve been surging in popularity. While you could look at the broader success of some titles like Hollow Knight and others as the inspiration for skewing the average skill level up, in general I think as gamers as a whole have continued to be more experienced and savvy, more are looking to be challenged. Stillborn Slayer is absolutely made in that general mold, though some of the choices made in its design also make it tough for the wrong reasons.

The core hook here is a game built around pretty challenging combat, with you needing to be nimble while dodging your enemies and their projectiles while using a mix of close-quarters melee and ranged attacks to bring them down. Trying to do both in parallel is absolutely going to be tough, and getting all of those options to feel comfortable and sensible when it comes to controls has to be difficult. That said, I really found the controls to be a struggle, especially when trying to dodge what can often feel like bullet hell style enemy attacks. Some games have the feel for this down, giving you confidence as you dodge and weave, but in this case there’s a shakiness to your movement that instead strips your confidence away and it feels more like a struggle.

While it bills itself as a roguelike, overall I’d say that’s also a bit of a stretch. Sure, it packs some of the challenge of a roguelike, but its general structure really doesn’t give you that thrill of the unexpected ahead with every new run. It could be that what has been implemented just doesn’t allow for all that much variability compared to the rest of the pack, but as a roguelike fan this was tough for me not to be let down by. Throw the concerns with the control struggles together with what feels like an overall lack of satisfying variety, and you have a game that simply comes up short trying to compete with a pretty substantial number of titles in the eShop which have done a far better job in pulling together polished and satisfying experiences.