When I started up Squirrel with a Gun the other day, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I assumed it would be a silly little game that wore its gameplay on its sleeve with a title like that. What I didn’t expect was a sandbox world similar in setup to Mario Odessey.

After stealing a golden acorn from the government and “taking care of” a few government agents I was plopped into a small town with the simple objective “Collect Golden acorns and Defeat Father and His Tank” Having no idea what that meant I started exploring and found myself running around completing platforming challenges and shooting a variety of guns.

The platforming difficulty varied from so easy a baby squirrel could do it, to an infuriating controller throwing nightmare. Luckily for me, my loot goblin brain pushed through any and all obstacles to reach those sweet, sweet customization rewards. Being a little gray squirrel is cute and all but being a white squirrel in a tuxedo with a pompadour is more my speed. There are plenty of customization options to be unlocked too, along with filters for the photo mode. Some of them come with helpful gameplay effects while others add fun little visual flair or animations to your squirrel.

The Good

Let’s start with what I enjoyed during my time with “Swag”. The music was surprisingly good, simple enough background music that evolves into a crazy action movie rock ballad during boss fights and vehicle segments. Seriously you need to listen to the OST if you take away nothing else from this game. I found myself redoing boss fights a few times just to hear this song and speaking of boss fights the cutscenes leading up to them are hilarious.

The cutscenes play out like a B list action flick and the game does a great job being silly and over the top with it. The vehicle segments were also fun and fast paced. I was driving my little RC car around a skatepark doing flips and taking a drone around to shave everyone’s heads who got in my way and civilians will get in the way. Sometimes civilians will run up to you to try and see what the cute little squirrel is up to and if you wait a moment and pose for them, they will reward you with some tasty acorns. You can actually spend these acorns on weapon and vehicle spawns to make it easier to refill ammo and swap weapons on the fly.

The Bad

The combat is Average at best, mostly setup as a goofy joke than something satisfying. The aiming feels a little off and enemy health is more of a suggestion than anything else. The platforming while good in most segments finds itself troublesome in later game area’s due to lack of a shadow and spatial awareness. Using your gun for extra height and airtime was a cool idea in theory but doesn’t work so well outside of the submachine gun and pistol.

But more than anything else I was most frustrated by a lack of accessibility options I.E a Level select, a retry option in areas, checkpoints or even a credits option. I’m an achievement hunter personally so when I saw one for getting a perfect score in the credits, I was excited to do just that. Well, I was one point short and realized the only way to try again was to do the last level and final boss all over again and didn’t think it was worth another 30 minutes for my second attempt at that. It’s a shame too because the game is fun but held back by a lack of QoL and TLC in some spots.

Overall

Overall, I enjoyed my time with “Swag”. The game knew what it wanted to be and doesn’t overstay its welcome, clocking in at about 3-4 hours for a standard run and about 5-6 hours for getting all the achievements. I would recommend giving the game a go for its stylish presentation and if for nothing else to experience father and mother boss battles and that epic song.

Squirrel With A Gun Was Reviewed on Xbox Series X. A review code was provided by the publisher to Gamer Social Club