Peglin Review

It’s a Spinavation!

My husband and I had a horrid Peggle addiction when it was released back in 2007. We found ourselves spending time together, working through the various boards, and losing so much time to it. Now, Red Nexus Games has come along to give us a new addiction in the form of Peglin, a game that is “Peggle, but make it a roguelike.” Now with the game having released on PlayStation consoles, we have found ourselves playing it over and over again, yelling “just one more run!” and having the hardships of being so-close-but-then-the-dragon-eats-you — true pain, my friends, for Peglin is a cruel mistress, and we are here to take its punishment and keep coming back for more.

Players take on the role of a tiny goblin, Peglin, who works through three major areas: a forest, a castle, and a dark mine. Armed with unique pachinko orbs, Peglin moves around the map, stopping at randomized nodes that can provide great boons, over-the-top battles, or terrible shenanigans. There isn’t much of a story here, which, in fairness to Peglin, is not the game’s goal. What writing that does exist in the game, however, is exceptionally cheeky, making wandering into those bits a wonderful surprise. From accidental portals to touching a hot smithy, Peglin has some wild and randomized adventures.

Wheeeeee!

While there is barely a story in Peglin, there is an amazing marriage of the roguelike genre and hot pachinko ball action. Battles take place on a pegboard, with the player launching various Pebballs on the board, and hitting the pegs damages the enemy. The premise involves Peglin navigating through randomized versions of the game’s three main areas, with a successful run concluding with the player beating the last area’s final boss. Everything in Peglin is randomized to some degree, from the peg boards to the relics that can be obtained in each run. At the start of a run, players have the option to select a random relic that can give them an advantage or simply begin the game without the boost. Relics can also be obtained during random events, as well as boss fights, and they stack, meaning a player could have one relic that lengthens the aim line on the board, and another where ricocheting a ball off walls adds to the amount of damage the enemy takes. Not all relics are made equal, as some of them will offer powerful boons at the cost of Peglin’s health points.

The same can be said for the number of Pebballs that Peglin can acquire after every battle. There are a ton of pros and cons to each ball type, such as the Infernball damaging Peglin for -2 health, with the upside being the orb’s speed and ability to detonate bombs immediately, rather than the standard two hits it takes normally to detonate. While having a multiball orb can make for a lot of entertainment, it’s not necessarily helpful on a peg board that is in constant motion. In addition, since collected orbs are randomized each encounter, the player always knows the orbs they have, but may not know what order they will appear. After every battle, the player can also upgrade the level of the Pebball to add some new advantages at the cost of losing some gold.

Whoooooooo!

Chaos and randomness are what keep Peglin engaging with every encounter. The base gameplay is simple, but all the different orbs and relics add an extra layer of complexity, meaning that there is a lot of possible experimentation the player can do. There is a lot of strategy that comes from ensuring that the player maximizes the amount of damage they produce each turn, whether it’s hitting critical pegs each turn or smartly using refresh pegs to add more to the damage counter. There’s also just something so satisfying about having a Pebball slide down a straight or curved section and watching the points add up, seeing a bunch of multiballs at work, or hitting a bunch of criticals and bombs at the same time. Sometimes, the Pebball gods will work against the player, where orbs will be tossed, and the turn is a wash because not enough pegs were hit. Even when completing a battle, players are given the option to choose their direction of movement by tossing a Pebball accordingly, and even that can work for or against them.

The creativity in Peglin‘s level and boss design is impeccable. Every level offers a different challenge, from pegs that are in constant motion to some encased in slime, making the Pebballs very slick and difficult to bounce. Failure is such an important part of learning in Peglin, as losing battles gives the player better insight into how to complete it next time, and the only true penalty for failure is having to start the run over from the beginning. Every run has a different boss battle for each of the three zones, each equipped with unique challenges that the player will need to overcome. The slime boss, for example, has pegs surrounded in slime, which can make it difficult to keep a continuous back and forth for the Pebball, but using walls, bombs, and orbs with special debuffs can often counteract the challenge. There is a great amount of thought in how the game is designed, and it rewards those who pay close attention to the finer details in encounters and equipment.

Enchantment? Enchantment!

A successful run in Peglin can often be completed in around an hour or so, although this is very dependent on how the RNG gods want to reward or punish the player. After one full completion of the game, the player will open a Cruciball mode, where there are twenty levels to explore and a negative status effect tacked on each time. There are also other classes that the player can unlock by completing different and difficult in-game challenges, and each has their advantages and disadvantages, though in this reviewer’s opinion, the standard Peglin character offers the most flexibility overall.

The game also only has a handful of tracks, but what is there is snappy and whimsical; it’s just a shame there isn’t a lot of variety in the audio department. Visually, each area has a unique design that is somehow baked into the pegboard, with some of the boards having a specific monster design, while others have visual cues such as floating pegs or a pegboard that is designed to flow like a waterfall. One bit of disappointment that did occur was the game stopping mid-way through the final boss fight on numerous occasions and having to exit out and reload. Unfortunately, this happened more than once.

Peglin is easily one of my new favourite games. It’s cleverly designed, every playthrough feels different, and there is a comedic chaos to all the insanity that is happening throughout the game. It’s a game that has made me feel so many emotions — anger, frustration, excitement, and joy. While its deceptively simple design may not appeal to everyone, there is no denying that Peglin is a triumph of genre-melding proportions. It’s the perfect time sink for someone looking for a quick game to waste time on, only to find themselves wanting to go just one more round.

Disclosure: This review is based on a free copy of the game provided by the publisher.

Addictive gameplay

Clever level design 

Randomness is both a blessing and curse

Freezing on a specific boss fight

Limited soundtrack

RNG gods can be mean