Here are some early impressions of Gauntlet

How’s Gauntlet? So, how’s that Gauntlet? Hodor?

The Gauntlet series has always been one of my favorite go-to sources for instant fun. It was one of the first games I ever played with my wife, and it was the source of endless nights of enjoyment on the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation platforms.

Almost out of the blue, a new iteration has popped up by the creators of Magika, entitled simply Gauntlet. Not Gauntlet Reborn or Gauntlet 2014, just Gauntlet, thank you very much. As a result, I’ve had a ton of readers ask me how it is given the fact that there are hardly any impressions out in the world. Since no copies were given out before launch, people took that as a bad sign.

So far, it’s pretty good though.

Gauntlet doesn’t screw around and gets you into the action pretty quickly. After a brief tutorial that shows you all four characters and their nuances, you’re off the to races. There’s skills to earn as you level-up, relic items to equip and use, and lots of outfits to acquire. There’s more content here than I thought.

Both the UI and the game is old school and minimal, which is a good thing for the most part. The Warrior and Valkryie employ melee attacks, and the Elf and Wizard use a twin-stick shooting system. The Wizard in particular is the most interesting, as he uses a simplified “combo” system from Magika to cast spells — like using the ice button twice uses an ice beam, and so on.

Starting or jumping into a multiplayer game online is as easy as pressing a menu option, and although the controller is the preferred method of control, the keyboard and mouse works great too (especially for the Wizard and Elf). My only big hangup so far is the visual style. It works, and it’s very easy to see what’s going on despite the chaos, but it’s not as original or pronounced as I would have liked, especially given some of the more eccentric stylings of past games like Gauntlet Legends.

So yeah, that’s Gauntlet. It’s old school, polished, and fun to play online. Stay tuned for the full review as I work through it to see if the fun lasts.