Shoulders Of Giants Review (Xbox Series S)

by Jim Smale · February 8, 2023

For this Shoulders Of Giants Review, we simultaneously control a sword-wielding mech and a gunslinging space frog in Shoulders of Giants, an explosively colorful sci-fi roguelike. Play alone, with a friend, or as part of a four-person team, cutting through waves of enemies on a quest to rescue the galaxy from the forces of Entropy.

Shoulders Of Giants Review Pros:

Nice big bright graphics.
7.9GB download size.
1000 Gamerscore.
Opening tutorial section.
Controller settings – Invert axis and sensitivity sliders, aim to assist, vibration, Germ sensitivity slider, and Froggie aim sensitivity slider.
Can rebind controls.
Visual settings – Ui scaling slider, camera shake, and motion blur.
Four save slots.
Crossplay with the PC version.
The areas/locations look really good.
Loadout setting – main saver for melee, ranged gun, three ability slots with cool down.
You are a machine with a frog on your back.
Moba is like in that each level has you taking down spires before you can attack the core.
As you cleanse areas via the spires, the color will come back to them.
Eat bugs to regain health.
Enemy health bars and Damage numbers show.
On-screen help with buttons and objectives.
Earn EXP and use the points to put into the four skill trees (Frog/Robot/World/Stats).
Main hub world to level up, pick missions and chat with characters, craft, change loadout.
Dye your color using EXP at the coresmith.
Cores are your abilities and passive abilities you earn by playing. You can only equip X amount at one time. (depends on your abilities)
Change emotes.
Craft cores by breaking down unwanted ones.
Craft and equip new weapons for robot and frog.
Level selection is done via a solar system map of planets, each shows heat level and difficulty.
Multiple choice encounters.
Heat is what you are looking to earn in order to level and progress. Failing missions will take heat away from your progress bar.
Roguelike in the way that you lose all power-ups upon death.
Full 3D camera control.
Add a secondary ability an equipped ability.
Power-ups, levels, and planets are all randomized.
Find and complete arena challenges for extra rewards.

Shoulders Of Giants Review Cons:

Performance hitches like slowdown or dropping frames.
Unskippable opening intro.
No voice work just text.
Having to run around the hub is slow and tedious.
The frame rate tanks big time in boss battles to the point where it runs at like 5 frames.
The combat is hack and slash but it’s so loose and messy.
The tutorial is basic and doesn’t explain everything.
The music is not great and isn’t really a match for what’s going on.
Enemies hit far too hard.
The general movement in the game is not great.
Going into shooting can make the camera go erratic.
The maps are done in a way that it makes it hard to find the spires.
Picking up cores doesn’t pause the game so you back out and lose the chance to use the core.
When paused the camera just sinks into the ground, not bad but then when you unpause you have to wait until the camera comes back up.

Shoulders Of Giants:

Official website.

Developer: Moving Pieces Interactive

Publisher: Moving Pieces Interactive

Store Links –

Xbox

7/10

Graphics - 7/10
6/10

Sound - 6/10
7/10

Accessibility - 7/10
7/10

Length - 7/10
7/10

Fun Factor - 7/10

6.8/10

Summary

Shoulders Of Giants is a game that is trying to do a different approach to the Risk of Rain formula, almost a MOBA-like game where you need to take down two spires then go to the main one and fight a boss to clear the planet. You play as a robot with a frog partner on your head that does all the ranged combat. The robot is all about melee and using abilities. The game looks nice and the formula is alright, powerups/abilities are random and you can have 3 equipped with an additional 3 modifiers attached to each. When you have a good loadout the game can be satisfying but it’s far and few between so it’s just a slow trudge through hordes of overpowered enemies with impeccable accuracy, it’s just a slog. The combat is loose and never feels satisfying, range combat is just as messy. The loop of clearing planets is a repetitive one and planets start to repeat themselves. It all culminates into a game that’s not that fun to play and will have you giving up on it. Shame as the idea was sound but at the moment it’s a no.