Breakout Beyond

Its great for fans of the original! I loved it!

I’m hooked. What an aesthetic improvement for the Bit.Trip team with glorious quantized sound effects. Use a mouse, crank up the sensitivity, turn up those speakers, and let it rip.

Ultra stressful not what I wanted. The paddle isn't very solid and quite often the ball just fazes through

breakout beyond is an attempt to modernize an ancient video game along the lines of pac-man championship edition that runs into the insurmountable wall of breakout being fundamentally dull. the change in perspective doesn't change how the game plays. sometimes a certain powerup is a better choice than another, but ultimately every stage can be cleared with whatever you happen to bring along. the game is bright and colorful and completely soulless; i can vaguely remember seeing an arrangement of bricks that looked like a mushroom from centipede, and a cowboy. (no adventure dragon? really?) instead of fun references to other atari titles you mostly get rearrangements of the same handfuls of patterns of blocks. that feels literally cheap. like a flash game somebody bashed together in a couple weekends. so i'd say breakout beyond was a missed opportunity but i'm not sure that even those improvements would have made this interesting. breakout clones were a dime a dozen back in the day, to the point that they were often minigames in other (better) titles. having played this i think there's a reason we don't see them as much anymore.

One of the best games ive played in a while. Its an instant classic for me.

This game is a pretty fun take on Breakout. It can get rather intense but that's precisely part of the charm, actually. I enjoy not only that about the gameplay but I also admire the very fascinating and colorful, if somewhat minimalist, visual style. The music and sound design feels somewhat similar, minimalist yet rather appealing, especially since sometimes the soundtrack feels as if it's syncing with the brick-breaking gameplay. The game itself feels like both a unique twist on classic Breakout as well a subtle love letter to the developer's (Choice Provisions) roots, back when they made BIT.TRIP BEAT. (a game I also love, obviously enough) The campaign is long enough such that it feels worth the buy, (especially when it's on sale) and the score-chasing gameplay coupled with an endless mode adds to the replay value. There are only a few criticisms I have for the game: while using mouse controls for it feels good and useful enough, playing it with a controller's joysticks doesn't feel as smooth in my opinion, although I did eventually realize that using a given controller's joysticks isn't too bad if you keep an open mind. Another minor gripe I have is that the colorful lights can make it a bit difficult to tell what's going on, but this is hardly a deal breaker especially given that the BIT.TRIP series (which again, I love) has a similar effect. Having said all that, Breakout Beyond is a game worth playing, whether you're a fan of Atari, Choice Provisions, or if you just want a fun arcade-style game to play!

So far, it's been a fun game to play, but I would be lying if I said there were no issues. - I'm a really big fan of fresh, in-depth takes of really simplistic classics, and I'd say this does a pretty good job delivering. - I think the power-ups are cool, and I like that you can progressively unlock more. I'm only a few levels in, but so far, I really like it. - The visuals are beautiful, like a CRT with neon colors, it's really cool. - I like the spin mechanic, I think it makes for some pretty tactical plays for a simple game. - There also seems to be an abundance of content, which is fun. Like I said earlier though, I would be lying if I said there were no issues. - One issue I have is the stun mechanic. If the screen advances too far and there are too many bricks dotting the movement range of the paddle, you'll get stunned for a second or two. Maybe this is a skill issue on my part, but I feel like it limits the flow of movement too much, especially because the ball is usually moving pretty fast when you get to a point where bricks can slow you down. Maybe the intended design was to make players actually aim carefully as opposed to mindlessly smacking the ball around, so I'm not super picky about this one. - One other issue I have though is how fast the ball and paddle move sometimes. I know you can set the sensitivity to your preferred speed and use the sprint button to move at double the speed, but it is kind of hard to find a balance. One idea that I think would REALLY help out is automatic slowmo when the paddle isn't near the ball and the player is going to miss it. The player would then have enough time to reach the ball using the sprint button. The amount of slowmo time could then be incrementally reduced as the score gets higher and the ball gets faster. I know there is a slow motion feature already with the focus button, but not only does it lower your score, it can also be hard to predict when to use it or not. Sometimes, I'll panic and use the focus button, only to find that the ball has bounced off a stray brick and is moving away from the paddle, and sometimes when I predict it's going to hit that stray brick or the paddle, it *just* misses it, and I lose a ball. I think an auto slowmo feature (that doesn't deduct points from the score) would be a really nice addition. - Next, I think there is a fundamental flaw with being able to shoot another ball as the screen is still catching up to your progress, which could lead to the ball getting caught behind a brick as the paddle is moving forward, making it impossible to save. I think simply not allowing the player to shoot as they're advancing forward would clear this up. - Lastly, I think this may just be another skill issue on my part, but the fact that power-ups are automatically discarded upon losing a ball is pretty upsetting to me. Maybe the developers just intended for this to be a feature to increase difficulty, which I understand, but I don't fully grasp why the entire power-up, if it still has a few units of charge, is completely thrown out if you lose a ball. It kind of makes it seem pointless to have a countdown to when your power-up runs out if you can lose it just as quickly as you got it, maybe due to an impossible save like I had mentioned earlier. Overall, I would say the game is very good, but like any game, it has a few weaknesses. It definitely won't stop me from enjoying though, so if you would like this game, I'd still say get it! Devs, if you're looking at my comment, please take what I said into consideration, but please also don't confuse it with me calling your game bad! I think it's really good, and you did a good job :)

So good! One of my favorite new iterations of this classic game.

A fantastic take on the arcade classic Breakout. The music and sound design, really elevated the experience from being just another block breaker. The game also pairs a cool visual style and some fun Arkanoid-like power ups, to keep things engaging. If you're a fan of early arcade games, you should consider picking this one up. Also yes I'm aware of the Amico. Tommy's mother should be very proud, that one good thing came out of that.

The golden age of arcades <3 Atari > Adamvision Studios > SneakyBox > Dreams Uncorporated > Choice Provisions