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If there's one reason for me to have acquired Angry Arrows (AA), it would have been for the local coop. Despite not having my friend around at the time, I decided to check it out on my own, to see if it'd be the sort of game he'd enjoy. I'll just say that if we want to remain friends, I probably shouldn't make him play it.


There's four game modes available, all of which can be played with four people: Campaign, Gladiator, Rogue, and Arena. Campaign mode is made up of distinct stages, where you have to kill the enemy holding a key in order to rescue a hostage. In Gladiator, you face a set number of waves of enemies, as it's meant to recreate the feel of a champion being staged in a coliseum. The environment makes for a mixed bag, because you're completely walled in, but can make use of the numerous barriers. Honestly, Rogue didn't seem that distinct to me. Unlike the other modes, there's a time limit, but you wander around randomly generated stages, trying to rescue the hostage. What's so different about that?

Arena is for PvP matches, with four match types available. Extraction is essentially capture the flag, except the flag can be killed too, since you're escorting a captured person back to your territory. King of the Key recycles an asset to serve as the object you have to hold onto long enough to win. At the very least, they could have called it The Key to Victory. Deathmatch and Mine Game is won by whoever gets 15 kills first, but in Mine Game, you fire mines instead of arrows.


The developers strongly suggest playing AA with a controller, and per my own preferences, anything that involves moving and aiming in tandem works best that way. However, for many gamers, they'd do just as well using a mouse and keyboard, and in this case would seemingly be the easier option. All it'd take to line up your shot is to move your cursor directly onto the enemy, so I don't see why that wouldn't be preferable. When I try picking off enemies from a distance, I miss a decent amount of shots by a small margin, as it wasn't precise enough.


Despite having a campaign, there's no opening cutscene or summary text for what's going on. You're a human trying to rescue hostages from monster camps, but no plot is provided.


Bearing in mind that the game isn't ugly or hard on the eyes, it still manages to cause some issues. The perspective of AA is an overhead view, with the player and all enemies making up small targets across the screen. Enemies can't just gaze through their own barriers and walls, so using cover allows you some opportunity to sneak in close, and pick off foes from behind. Level layouts don't allow you to merely shoot everyone in the back from a distance though. Once an enemy archer has you in their sights, your only hope of surviving is to dodge roll as the arrow is fired, or to move out of their view by slinking behind cover. This is a bigger problem than you might expect because they otherwise won't miss a shot. When enemies never miss, it makes for such a frustrating experience. Additionally, due to the scale, there can be a large distance from your enemy, allowing you to be ever so slightly off with your aim. The level of precision allowed is really more of a detriment in this case.


Upon first launching the game, it was practically muted, so I bumped up both the music and sound effects to four dots. Unfortunately, that's not an ideal setting for the game, as the sound effects will drown out the music at those levels. I could see shooting arrows being a bit loud, but the high volume from walking around was what caught me off guard. Anyways, four and two dots seemed a better balance. From loading the same level a few times, I realized that the music chosen isn't based on what level you're playing, so there must be a certain number of tracks available that are selected from as you progress. Since the levels I saw looked fairly similar to each other, I could imagine the music fitting with any of the locations in AA.


🌟 A patient player could probably make decent progress by baiting enemies into ambushes.
🌟 Having four player coop is a nice feature.


❌ I remember lining up a shot for one of the level's last enemies, and I shot a bird that was in the way instead. Why are decorations able to screw me over?!
❌ In each fight, the odds are stacked against you. Just scouting the level for information can easily get you killed.
❌ You use the money to buy new arrows, but in total it'll take just under $200,000 to get everything.


🔍 Enemies are dumb. They should know where booby-traps are, but they'll trigger their own land mines if it's in their pathway.
🔍 If the enemy doesn't notice you after a missed shot, feel free to take another attempt.


I was dubious about AA when I struggled trying to make my way through the first level. To be fair, I needed to get a sense for how the game played. However, it was ridiculously easy for the enemy to ruin an attempt, catching me off guard while I was trying to deal with another threat, or catching me in the middle of a roll because I dodged too early. A few factors helped even the odds, such as triggering their simple AI to careen into an explosion, or being able to make them look the other way with missed shots, “Hey, was that an almost lethal attempt at my life? Let me look for an arrow to check.”

After clearing my first level, I felt a bit better, until I met kamikaze spiders that are faster than my dodge rolls. Barely coming into their line of sight makes them latch onto my current position and pursue me like greased lightning. Even if you kill them, if you don't get far enough away, you'll still die. As I tried other game modes, and kept running into such unfavorable positions, I had to wonder if the game was balanced around playing as a team, instead of going on your own. It'd certainly explain all the situations where you get pinned between two archers, which is more than enough to get you skewered on an arrow. That situation sucks when you're on your own, but could be easily countered with just one other person joining in. If you have friends itching to play William Tell, it might be worth trying AA out, but I don't recommend it when the enemies are such dead shots.