Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate

Shotgun King has a surprising amount of depth hidden under its fairly basic premise. It puts an entertaining roguelike spin on a well-worn board game, and the result is a match made in checkerboard heaven (not to be confused with Checkers itself). Without a doubt, there’s frustration to be found in drawing cards that don’t really synergize with each other, putting you into seemingly unwinnable scenarios. That said, runs are generally quite short, under 20 minutes in most cases, and so it’s easy enough to start right back up again after a loss. The presentation is quite clean and straightforward, but there’s a strong flash of light that accompanies the defeat of the enemy king–not something that normally affects me, but I did turn it off in the settings menu. It might not be a certain checkmate, but Shotgun King kept me in check more often than not, and it’s a pleasant and worthwhile distraction that deserves a spot among the higher tiers of run-based Switch games.