2022 has seen a lot of great retro-inspired games get released. And most of these have been released by popular Indie publisher, Ratalaika Games and they have been great. So now we have a game that has been inspired by the First Person Shooters released in the Nintendo 64 era with such games like Goldeneye. So here is God Damn the Garden which from first impressions looks a little quirky but all the same let us look at how it plays below.

God Damn the Garden is a title that has an interesting name which leads it to be rather non-descriptive as to its content. At the very core it is a 90’s First Person Shooter inspired game down to the rather questionable graphics but just looks worse. To navigate the dungeons, you need to manage your health and ammo while keeping on the look out for traps and unusual looking monsters to kill along the way. You meet cursed ducks and other manner of creatures which have all been recreated in a low poly style, just like they were on the Nintendo 64.

The game is very short which is disappointing as it had a lot of potential to be something that would have been fun to have replayability. It was the same when the game was released back on the PC December 2021 and no change on that front for the console versions. The dialogue of the characters leaves a lot to be desired and having them use the words “Lol” or “Lolz” every few seconds becomes very annoying. You will find that you will want to rage quit, and that is before the gameplay gets tricky.

The weapon in this game is very weak, is ugly and you can’t change it. You will find that you need to fire multiple bullets to kill any enemy but you can charge it to get a barrage attack which works against bigger, slower enemies. The auto aim is very bad and I found myself missing the target more often that I hit it and having very limited defenses means you get killed pretty easy. While there are plenty of checkpoints to respawn too, it gets frustrating that a monster can take 25% to 50% health from you and kill you in a few shots.

The game tries to be funny but sadly it does not know how to be funny. The visuals are a plus point as I liked the style from the Nintendo 64, but sadly that is its biggest attraction. The music is annoying and often better to be played on with it off so to save your ears. The difficulty curve is an impossible steep one and it means you will either carry on or give up playing, there is no in-between.

Final Thoughts

God Damn the Garden is a retro-inspired game which other than graphically it offers nothing else. Yes, it could be fun to play but issues like the learning curve and the dialogue it feels like a failure.