Spidersaurs is a fast, colorful run-and-gun shooter that combines old-school arcade action with the exaggerated personality of a Saturday morning cartoon. Developed and published by WayForward, it revolves around a wonderfully ridiculous disaster involving genetically engineered dinosaur-spider hybrids created by InGest Corp as an answer to world hunger. Predictably, the experiment goes catastrophically wrong, leaving former taste-testers Adrian and Victoria to clean up the resulting mess. The premise immediately establishes the playful tone, allowing the game to embrace bizarre monsters, explosive weapons, corny humor, and larger-than-life action without taking itself too seriously.
The campaign consists of six action-heavy stages built around shooting, platforming, environmental hazards, and increasingly dangerous mutant creatures. Its structure will feel immediately familiar to players who enjoy classic side-scrolling shooters, but the movement has enough platforming emphasis to require more than simply firing continuously while running forward. Enemy positioning, incoming projectiles, moving hazards, and sudden attacks force the player to pay attention to the entire screen. Later sections become considerably more demanding, creating situations where positioning and memorizing patterns are just as valuable as quick reflexes.
Victoria and Adrian are distinct enough to give the choice of character some personality. Victoria is a punk rocker, while Adrian is an officer-in-training with an athletic background, and their unusual weapons complement those identities. There are twelve weapons in total, ranging from recognizable spread guns and lasers to much stranger offensive tools such as explosive footballs and bass-powered attacks. Experimenting with the arsenal is one of the most entertaining parts of the experience because different weapons can feel significantly more useful depending on the enemy arrangement or boss encounter.
Progression also involves collecting power-ups and gaining new abilities while advancing through the InGest Corp facility. These upgrades expand what the characters can accomplish and help prevent the campaign from becoming a completely repetitive sequence of shooting galleries. The progression remains deliberately streamlined rather than becoming an elaborate upgrade system, which suits the arcade-oriented pacing. The emphasis is always on movement, shooting, survival, and mastering increasingly complicated encounters rather than managing equipment menus.
The Spidersaurs themselves are one of the game's greatest attractions. Combining dinosaurs with arachnid characteristics gives the designers plenty of opportunities to create bizarre enemies, and the resulting creatures fit perfectly with the deliberately absurd premise. Boss encounters push the idea even further, producing large opponents whose attack patterns demand observation and increasingly precise execution. The environments provide equally strong variety, taking players through locations such as dangerous jungles, contaminated laboratories, and volcanic areas. The changing scenery gives each portion of the relatively compact campaign a stronger individual identity.
Presentation is particularly impressive. The bright hand-drawn aesthetic, expressive characters, energetic animation, theme song, and elaborate introduction reinforce the feeling of playing an adaptation of a forgotten animated television series. Powerhouse Animation's contribution to the introductory sequence strengthens that illusion considerably. Instead of merely borrowing retro visual elements, the game commits to the entire cartoon concept. Its vibrant artwork also benefits gameplay because enemies and projectiles generally remain readable despite the amount of activity occurring on screen.
The adventure supports both solo play and two-player cooperative action. Playing with another person can turn already chaotic encounters into frantic battles filled with simultaneous gunfire and enemies arriving from multiple directions. Shared and split-screen cooperative support, along with Steam Remote Play Together, makes multiplayer an important part of the package. Cooperation does require coordination because demanding platforming sections can become more complicated when two players move at different speeds. With similarly skilled partners, however, co-op captures the social appeal of classic arcade shooters extremely well.
Three difficulty settings provide some control over how punishing the campaign becomes, although the game retains an intentionally old-fashioned sense of challenge. Later stages can become unforgiving, and repeated attempts may be necessary before enemy patterns and boss attacks become comfortable. This difficulty is satisfying when improvement leads to a clean run through a previously troublesome section, but it can occasionally become frustrating. Players expecting a relaxed action-platformer because of the cheerful cartoon artwork should be prepared for a game that takes its arcade mechanics seriously.
Completing the primary adventure does not necessarily mean there is nothing left to accomplish. Arcade and Speedrun modes can be unlocked, providing additional reasons to revisit familiar stages. These modes fit the game's design particularly well because repeated play naturally encourages memorizing enemy placement, improving weapon choices, reducing mistakes, and moving through stages more efficiently. The overall amount of content is not enormous, so players interested exclusively in completing the campaign once may find it relatively brief. Those interested in mastery, harder difficulties, achievements, cooperative sessions, or faster runs will get considerably more value from it.
Steam Deck compatibility is encouraging despite the Steam version officially targeting Windows. Community compatibility information on ProtonDB currently gives it a Platinum rating, indicating very strong Linux/Proton compatibility. Full controller support is also particularly appropriate for a game designed around arcade-style movement and shooting. As community compatibility results can differ from Valve's official Deck Verified classifications and may change following SteamOS, Proton, or game updates, the current Steam Deck status should be viewed accordingly. Still, its straightforward 2D structure and controller-focused gameplay make it an appealing handheld experience.
Overall, this is an entertaining fusion of demanding run-and-gun shooting, precision platforming, eccentric humor, and polished cartoon presentation. Its relatively short campaign and occasional difficulty spikes prevent it from being an essential recommendation for everyone, but its strengths are easy to appreciate. The twelve-weapon arsenal, distinctive playable characters, imaginative mutant enemies, unlockable abilities, cooperative play, multiple difficulties, and additional Arcade and Speedrun modes create a focused package with considerably more personality than its simple structure initially suggests. Anyone who enjoys challenging 2D shooters and exaggerated retro-cartoon aesthetics should find this strange combination of dinosaurs, spiders, punk rock, and heavy weaponry surprisingly effective.
Rating: 8/10
