Minishoot' Adventures

Excellent mix entre un Zelda à l'ancienne et un jeu de shoot.

[h1] Cute, fun twinstick Zelda 'em up in cult love triangle[/h1] That should be the sub-title for this game and it tells you almost everything you need to know about this game. [h2]Gameplay and difficulty[/h2] Minishoot adventures plays like a cross between Geometry Wars and Legend of Zelda: Link to the past. At it's core it's a twinstick shooter but the stage design, exploration aspect and top-down aspect of the cartoony world all scream "Zelda!!", and in a good way. The controls are familiar and slick, having you motor around the map killing anything that gets in your way easily. The stage designs make great use of the powers as you pick them up, unlocking areas of stages in an almost Metroidvania style as you go. Hitboxes seem fair (and a little on the lenient side for your ship) and the difficulty curve is genteel, letting you get past the second boss dungeon before anything more difficult starts to appear. As you explore the world you will find captured friends and once you've freed them, they return to your home base and act as various services and vendors for you to use, including map icon reveals, weapons upgrades, healing and item vending. Exploration also will reward you with secret paths, places you can't get to yet, health upgrades, extra gears for using at the vendors. Levelling up allows you to improve weapons and some powers, RPG style, and you can reallocate your earned skill points whenever you want meaning you never horde them. Everything feels familiar and 16-bit action-RPG in it's design ethos but with bullets instead of swords. [h2]Highlights - where this game shines [/h2] Immediately you'll be met with the outstanding highlight of this title: It's visual design. The world is cute, cartoony without feeling childish and top-down Zelda but for the 4k generation. Everything is visually clean with a minimal UI and the SFX work well. It's a world you want to explore and that's pleasant to be around in, despite the ongoing apocalypse. Another non-gameplay highlight is the storytelling. The main plot is exposed early in the game with a lovely twist to the tale very late in the run time. As you play you'll find lore tablets for one of your friends that reveal some backstory and the levels are dripping with background detail reinforcing the world, it's players and the central conceit of the plot. While I'd have preferred more lore drops throughout or other reveals through encounters, what's here works well for the casual vibe and the length of the game. Lastly, I have to shout out the boss battles. They are multi-phased and some of these are truly brilliant, using Touhou style bullet hell patterns forcing you to cancel, dodge, approach and retreat in ways that will make you react and stay engaged in the gameplay. I won't ruin these for you, but the third main boss and the final bosses are particular highlights. [h2] Weaker elements[/h2] There are a few things that are serviceable about the game, but could have been stronger to elevate this game from really good fun to brilliant. Among these are: * The power up system is boring and a touch flawed. Your gun upgrades are mostly bigger spreadshot, but are serviceable. Skill upgrades grant you more reach, faster bullets, better RoF and higher damage which looks like variety early, but really isn't when you realise more bullets equals more damage anyway and enemies aren't fast enough to dodge your attacks until near the end. With a more varied weapon system in play and changing the skills for differing weapon patterns or abilities (short but spread out. Long but straight. Homing. Burst. Bounce. Chargeshot etc etc) would have made the game feel more varied in it's upgrade path. * Limited homing bullets are a mainstay of your ship. These are both a blessing (making the game much more accessible) and a curse (leading shots may curl away from your intended target to home in on something closer to your line of fire). Frankly, I'd prefer these off unless you select them as a player assist option. * Some player powers get next to no use as they come too late in the game to have any impact. You'll see what I mean *cough* dodge *cough*. * Difficulty curve is a touch too genteel for my liking, with threat not building fast enough for you to really notice for over half of the game. This does lend itself to greater accessibility though, so it may not be a negative for you. [h2]Will you like this?[/h2] If you liked old school Zelda, or appreciate exploration twin stick games like Binding of Isaac or are a bullet dodging newbie that can barely clear stage three of Geometry wars and fancies revenge then there's more than a fair chance you'll like this. If you like the aesthetic and have 8 - 10 hours to spend, this game has you covered and you'll enjoy your stay. If, on the other hand, you prefer your shoot 'em ups more hardcore, or if you will get annoyed by the cure aesthetic, backtracking, or how limited the use of your powerups or upgrades may be, you might want to give Star or Providence a try instead. [h2]Verdict[/h2] I loved my time with this one and am working my way through the post endgame content now (a bunch of challenge dungeons to test your shooting skills). It's extremely well realised, and I don't regret what I paid for this (£8.99, if I recall). It's a great break from traditional shmupping or the horde of Zelda clones out there. It's not for every shoot 'em up fan, but if you watched the trailer and thought "That looks nice" you should have a lot of fun here. I'd love to see another one of these from SoulGame studio or some expansion content to keep me coming back. In my opinion, this has had a lot of love poured into it and it wears it's heart on its sleeve/hull. If a game leaves you wanting more, that should be testament to the fun it was giving you. I want more of this and you might too. When you finish it my opening title will make more sense ;-)