Review of Rogue Pinatas: VRmageddon

In the realm of gaming, roguelikes have become quite common on both PC and consoles, but they haven’t made quite the leap into virtual reality (VR) as smoothly. There are still only a handful of great VR roguelikes amidst a sea of potential. Enter Rogue Pinatas: VRmageddon, the latest contender attempting to stake its claim in the VR roguelike space, offering an endless parade of lethal pinatas for players to beat and blast away. Unfortunately, Rogue Pinatas: VRmageddon doesn’t quite stand out in the VR roguelike crowd.

Rogue Pinatas draws clear inspiration from the legendary Vampire Survivors, a standout in the roguelike genre, while it unsuccessfully tries to liken itself to the Dead Rising series. The comparison to Dead Rising falls flat, but Rogue Pinatas does capture some of that Vampire Survivors vibe. Eliminating pinatas rewards players with candy, which levels them up and unlocks new tools and weapons. Much like in Vampire Survivors, players can collect a special power-up that reels in all the loose candy from the stage in one go, triggering a satisfying leveling spree. Weapons and gadgets can combine, and with the right upgrades, they evolve into more potent forms.

This sort of upgrade mechanic is a staple of addictive roguelikes, and it works similarly in Rogue Pinatas. However, the game offers its most powerful weapon right at the start, which can disincentivize players from trying out other options. Right from the jump, you wield a bat, and when paired with a healing gadget, it evolves into the Vampire Bat. This weapon restores substantial health upon hitting foes, potentially making players nearly invincible.

When pinatas swarmed me, a few wild swings with the Vampire Bat rendered their attacks useless, even when surrounded and stuck in place. Pairing it with the gatling gun removes any remaining challenge. Despite this, there’s some enjoyment for those seeking mindless action in Rogue Pinatas: VRmageddon.

The game deserves credit for its diverse stages and objectives. Each level presents something new. The first level has you surviving in a pinata-infested neighborhood for 15 minutes. The next is about restoring electricity to generators in a desert, followed by an escort mission. The pinatas themselves range from lively llamas to eerie floating eyeballs that shoot lasers. While most pinatas are fun to smash, the excessively loud explosive ones can make replaying a bit off-putting. Adding to this is the fact that the game features only six levels, so despite the variety, monotony sets in rather quickly.

Moving on to more serious issues—the game’s difficulty, or rather, the lack thereof, hampers progression, one of the key pillars of the roguelike genre. Players can earn XP to purchase lasting upgrades, meant to make runs easier, but the game’s low difficulty means these upgrades don’t hold much relevance. Typically, upgrades in roguelikes are valuable, offering substantial improvements to enhance survival chances, but this isn’t the case in Rogue Pinatas. The upgrades just make an easy game even more of a breeze.

Between matches, upgrades are purchased in a garage where you also set up online multiplayer sessions and choose characters. Initially limited to one character, more can be unlocked through challenges. Different characters offer different starting weapons, but the upgraded bat’s power diminishes any reason to switch since you can collect other weapons during missions and dual-wield them.

Rogue Pinatas comes off as overly simplistic, and any challenge it offers tends to have a way around it. Take the second stage’s boss fight with two giant rodent pinatas. Initially intimidating, they simply walked into a wall and stayed there until defeated. The escort mission was tricky at first, but after realizing that straying far from the RV prevents any damage, it became ludicrously easy. The boss at the end of that mission was grand in appearance but also got stuck, ignoring me afterward.

Even I found myself trapped in the terrain on multiple occasions, especially when using teleportation movement over the continuous option. While I eventually freed myself, it was consistently annoying. Consequently, anyone purchasing Rogue Pinatas should abandon teleportation immediately to avoid the frustration of getting stuck, albeit at the expense of some speed across the battlefield.

This isn’t the only issue. Players also have to grapple with the freezing of UI elements and the poor draw distance. For the UI, there was a time when the level meter froze, staying that way until a restart was necessary. Although I continued leveling up, gauging when a level-up was due became impossible. The poor draw distance makes open levels unsightly, with enemies appearing and vanishing as if in a fog of war scenario. There is a commendation due for managing to cram a dizzying array of pinatas on the screen without slowdown, but this seems to compromise the draw distance, at least on a Meta Quest 3 headset.

I completed all six levels of Rogue Pinatas in roughly 2.5-3 hours with minimal setbacks, which is atypical for a roguelike experience.

While Rogue Pinatas: VRmageddon can be briefly amusing, especially among friends, solo players will likely find its value lacking. Despite offering a vast array of unlockable content via achievements, characters, and permanent upgrades, the core gameplay doesn’t captivate enough to keep one engaged. The concept of a first-person roguelike in the vein of Vampire Survivors is certainly intriguing, but Rogue Pinatas: VRmageddon falls short of fully realizing its potential.