Lil Guardsman Switch Review
Every so often, a game comes along that completely blindsides me with the unexpected… Lil Guardsman was a game I initially overlooked in my review schedule, making way for Hitman and a few other games. By chance, it made its way onto my calendar, and I’m so glad it did because it impacted me emotionally in unexpected ways due to personal circumstances, while also making me wholeheartedly laugh. Lil Guardsman is a comedy fantasy adventure from Hilltop Studios in the vein of “Papers Please.” It’s your task to allow or deny people entry into the Kingdom of Sprawl, a medieval but modern fantasy setting full of people and all sorts of mythical creatures. While appearing simplistic on the surface, Lil Guardsman does indeed take a deeper turn into war, persecution, and political intrigue. What’s it like? Grab some power crystals, read the daily writ, and take your post as we review Lil Guardsman.
Lil Guardsman tells the story of Lil, a 12-year-old girl who is covering for her Father at a guardpost so he can illegally gamble on some Goblin Ball. Throughout her day, Lil must decide who can and can’t enter the Sprawl, the kingdom that you guard. To do this, Lil has a range of tools that she can use to determine whether someone should be let in, and she can also simply talk to them to uncover more about their story. It all starts off simple enough, with lots of laughs, clever deep cuts and throwbacks to earlier stages of characters in the game, and a lot of hilarious pop culture references.
The Art style feels like you are playing an interactive cartoon in the style of Gravity Falls or Steven Universe, each character has their own personality and charm, and the world of the Sprawl, while being limited to a handful of areas, feels like a unique and varied kingdom. Characters become recognisable from previous chapters and characters that frequently appear become a delight to see such as Mr Fantastico, who is looking for a wonderful hat. These characters inject humour into the story and are superbly voice-acted, bringing the 2D-rendered characters to life.
After your first day, events transpire that keep you covering for your Dad, who is a bit of a… questionable father figure. Your day typically starts with waking up to the news on the radio, which delivers exposition from the previous day’s activities. When you start your shift, you check the daily Royal Writ, which gives you objectives and hints for the day. You then select which tools to charge for use during your shift (and you must choose carefully) and start screening people at your gate. It’s up to you how you approach questioning the people, but you only have 3 interactions before having to make your decision so choose wisely as you will receive a star rating on everyone you dey or allow. The Star rating affects your pay, which can be used to upgrade your tools to have more gem slots, or to buy more gems, both real and counterfeit which may or may not explode but save you some gold. Nearly every decision you make will impact the Sprawl, in ways you cannot possibly foresee on your first playthrough, so I encourage players to do their best the first time around, and not get too caught up in their decisions so you can enjoy the game.
The game actually encourages failure, and thanks to the Chronometer 3000, you are able to restart your day, or even make a shorter jump back to a point in your shift you want to change. Overreliance on the device can also have unforeseen consequences, so choose wisely. The game sometimes throws you off which leads to 1 or 2 frustrating restarts, such as your advisor chastising you and telling you to immediately let someone in, only to find out you get a 1-star performance review, which made me restart the day. This only happened twice to me and I suppose the lesson to learn was to trust your gut, regardless of what the advisors say.
Lil Guardsman manages to successfully navigate complex themes such as war and political strife while keeping it light-hearted without ruining the gravity of the events occurring in Lil’s world. Each choice impacts the Sprawl in a way and while some of these changes are minor, like losing the Sprawls’ best Chiropractor, others have repercussions that affect the Sprawl and its citizens, and even Lil in her family environment. Due to the nature of the story of the game, I don’t really want to go into how or why, but during my playthrough, there were several moments that I thought “If only I let that person through in Chapter 2.” It’s very interesting to see relationships evolve, as well as having “imperfect” characters you grow fond of. The game warrants multiple playthroughs, and once I have caught up on my release schedule this month, that is what I intend to do. I’m not sure how many endings there are currently, but the possibilities & replayability make this game well worth bribing the E-shop gatekeepers for $30 AUD. You can even intentionally do a “Chaos Run,” acting as an agent of evil and purposely sabotaging Sprawl with chaotic results.
The game looks and performs great, and I only experienced 2 particular bugs in my playthrough, one which made me think I was watching a cutscene until I paused the game and got my cursor back, and another when I restarted my shift (The final chapter) I lost all of my gold and gems after spending it in the previous attempt, meaning I spectacularly failed and had to retry again. Neither of these were game-breaking, and I was playing a pre-release copy so these issues may not even be present in the final release of the game. Aside from that, my playthrough was a smooth and enjoyable experience that lasted around 12 hours and I struggled to put my Switch down.
Lil Guardsman is a beautifully told story with a complex and rich narrative brought to life by superb voice acting and beautifully drawn characters. It explores some heavy themes like morality, relationships, and war while managing to keep it light-hearted, seeing the world of the Sprawl through Lil’s innocent eyes. The game manages to emotionally invest the player in the world and its denizens to deliver moments that will make you laugh, cry, and leave you wanting to go back to ensure everyone gets to live happily ever after. Lil Guardsman has been one of my most memorable gaming experiences in years, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
A review code was provided, but this does not have any impact on the overall score of this review.
