Review: Peglin Perfect in Small Doses

Close It’s basically a pachinko game. Peggle The game has roguelike elements. Each run gives you another chance to try and become strong enough to fight off the dragons who are stealing gold from the goblins. However, since the game is all about aiming balls at pins to deal damage, how well you do can be a matter of luck. That means it may not be the roguelike that everyone wants or expects, but it is actually quite a fun and entertaining experience if you approach it the right way.

Each Close run begins with the player choosing an elf as their avatar. You start with a standard Peglin, but can unlock additional playable characters like Balladin, Roundrel, and Spinventor by performing certain actions and achievements in the game. However, since luck plays a huge role in the game, it can take quite a while before that happens. The general premise for each remains the same regardless. Your goal is to travel through different areas, defeating various bosses across three stages, in the hopes of saying “no more” to the stolen gold.

Since this is a roguelike game that follows the line Kill Spire or Encryption, There is a map for each act. You can choose a relic at the start to influence your performance, as well as earn them after major enemy encounters. Depending on where you land, you can face a group of enemies, find treasure, deal with an encounter, or face a mini-boss as you progress to the final boss of each area. You shoot orbs, which can have different properties, at the posts to deal damage and accumulate gold. Gold can be spent after enemy encounters or in shops to buy new orbs, upgrade the ones you have, or restore health. As for the posts, there can be different types. Standard ones add total damage and can have gold attached to them. Some will make the attack become a critical hit, increase damage, and can activate the properties of certain orbs. There is also a refresh that resets the board, so the pegs you have removed will come back in. Your goal is to build a good selection of orbs with different properties to help you survive and destroy your enemies, as well as choose a path that gives you enough room to grow without being defeated.

Because the core premise of Close very similar Peggle or pachinko, there is very little you can do to influence the outcome of a level and turn. There will be certain levels and pin patterns where you can take advantage of arcs and placement to place an orb in a certain direction to hit one or maybe two specific pins. Your orb selection can also help, as some orbs like Daggorb can do extra damage on critical hits, Echorb will do AOE damage, Doctorb will heal you, Protectorb creates ballwark to build up defenses, etc. So you are really trying to build a good orb stack that can help you deal damage while staying alive and protected, so even if you run into a bad level or boss, you will still be fine. Since you can preview the map, you can even plan your choices to prepare for certain bosses.

This means being truly successful at Close It’s scary in the long run. There are so many things out of your control that can ruin a run. Having a bad map with not enough elite enemies in the first playthrough can make subsequent plays much harder. There are some bosses in areas that are much harder than others. Some relics are much better for plays in general or specific enemies. Also, maybe I’m just not good at this game and need to spend more time on it, but some of the higher Cruciball difficulties that can be unlocked seem too much and unbalanced to me.

I feel like Close is a fun roguelike game if you missed it Peggle or be okay with knowing how well you do can be entirely up to RNG. It doesn’t always require perfection like roguelike games like Hell or Dead cellswhere your skill is a big part in determining how successful you are. Here, it depends a lot on luck. That means if you are okay with that and play it in small doses, Close can be great! But since your ability to influence your run is limited, it can be frustrating when you often find yourself doing everything right, but failing because you don’t have the right orb or relic and are unbalanced as a result.

Close available for Nintendo Switch and PC.

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