The appeal only lasts for so long.

I was addicted to Trials for a nice long while. The simplistic nature of the overall game (get from point A to point B) combined with the tricky environments and skill based maneuvering made for a difficult, but satisfying time. There was one thing that was very important that Trails had implemented into their game that made it work so well, and that is missing from another game that takes a lot from Trials and adds its own flair to it. Guts and Glory is a trial based game that probably would have been better suited to be called Guts and Gory.

Set in a town that has been selected to be ground zero for the Guts and Glory competition, players are set to choose different participants that must navigate courses with bicycles, cars, and even a lawn chair with a propane tank strapped to it. The kicker is these courses have deadly hazards in place like rotating saws, cannons, crossbows, and land mines that will impale, obliterate, and seriously disfigure anyone that comes into contact with them. But if the player makes it through, they’re one step closer to being crowned Guts and Glory champions.

Platforms: PC, XB1, PS4, Switch
MSRP: $14.99
Price I’d pay: Maybe $5

So, much like Trials, it’s a “get to point A to point B” kind of game. There are checkpoints players must run though to open up the next checkpoint, some of which save the run and players can start from there rather than the beginning of the course. Players also have a few things they can use to help at their disposal. They have a boost that gives them a nice speed up ability and an adrenaline button that slows down time and allows players to maneuver a difficult section in order to avoid traps and hazards.

While the concept is simple, actually succeeding is another story. Things get pretty tricky very early on, and failing is both frustrating as well as hilarious. The amount of blood that comes out of a character is outlandishly plentiful, and seeing characters without limbs is a very common occurrence. It is not a game to play with kids by any means. Granted, all the gore can be turned off if one likes, but why would you? This is Guts and Glory for a reason.

Now, you may have seen me talk about how failing can be frustrating in the previous paragraph. That’s because of a few reasons. The first is the hazards themselves can be difficult to spot. I can’t tell you how many times I ran into a land mine not knowing there was one there and I just didn’t see the small yellow circle in the dirt. It really comes up as cheap deaths on some tracks. This, in turn, leads me to the most frustrating part of Guts and Glory: the respawn time. As I mentioned in the introduction, Trials succeeds on being addictive and fun based on one simple reason – the instant restart button.

In Trials, if I hit the restart button, I’m immediately taken back to where I left off and begin again. It is completely instant. If I hit the restart button in Guts and Glory, I go to a loading screen for about three to four seconds, the game then loads for another second, and then I begin again. Those five second wait times ruin the concept of trial and error in this game. So much that it quickly turns into a game I don’t want to play anymore. Due to the difficulty of the game, it quickly becomes a try and fail game that players have to brute force their way through, and that would be totally fine if they didn’t have to wait in between tries. It grows tiresome way too fast and gets boring after a while.

The game originally was on PC, and it shows. Even the menus have an “X” box that players have to highlight and press to get out of rather than just hitting the “B” button. On top of that, this console port is lacking some optimizations. There are tons of hang up and frame rate slow down which shouldn’t be happening in a game that looks like an early 360 title.

That’s what it all boils down to. The game controls alright for the most part even though it is a physics based game overall, but due to the waiting times in between runs, it is way more tedious than it should be. While it is still fun to see how crazy the characters get beaten up and blown to smithereens, that is a novelty that wears off after only an hour. In fact, I couldn’t see many players of this game playing it for very long when it comes to actually trying to progress through the courses. I would say if you’re looking for a trial and error game with high difficulty, but rewarding game play, go for Trials over Guts and Glory. You’ll get a few laughs seeing how characters die, but in the end, it becomes frustrating far too quickly.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.