Minishoot' Adventures

I say this a lot, but I've been playing video games for a very long time. I played the Atari 2600 in my bedroom as a child. I remember vividly my Aunt Pooh rubbing her hands together as my brother and I were unwrapping the Nintendo Entertainment System, months after my cousin had it. "I can smell Mario's cologne" she said, and sure enough, Super Mario Bros took over the living room. I remember seeing commercials for The Legend of Zelda, and wanted it immediately. I was rounding out my obsession with gold, recently becoming a 49ers fan, and this game came with a gold cartridge. I played that game with a Nintendo Power magazine by my side, and saved up to get the latest Electronic Gaming Monthly Magazine.

Later on I became obsessed and in love with shoot-em up-games. This started with a game called Life Force (Salamander), which was a two player shoot-em-up by Konami. Destroy things, get powerups, power up your weapons, dodge enemy bullets, destroy more things. It was insane, and we couldn't stop playing it, especially after we found out the "Contra Code" worked for it, too, to give us 30 lives. Other games in arcades became favorites. 1941, Phelios, and even Raiden took my money with ease. Later on, the genre evolved to the "Bullet Hell" genre, where your only chance to survive was to dodge everything, keep shooting, and hope for the best. And I know most gamers know how these work, but sometimes these reviews ain't just for you. Deal with it. All this will make sense. 

All that to say, I wish I hadn't overlooked this new game called MiniShoot' Adventures by Soulgame. This game put all of my favorite genres into one game. The game kicks in telling you that the Unchosen has invaded the land which you reside, and has captured all of your friends in corrupted crystal. The Primordial Scarab has chosen you to retrieve all of it's powers, find your friends, and defeat the unchosen. You start off in a cavern, and immediately start dodging bullets whilst navigating through caves, with the left stick. You land on a switch and it opens up a new path. And you realize later, that this first level is preparing you for the game at large.

You then get your gun, in it's lowest form, and begin shooting at very little range. It's ok, because you can use it to take out the first room you get locked in. And you can't leave this room until you defeat what my chat referred to as "Angry Roombas". You take them out, and the game asks how easy you want your shooting to be. You can keep it at normal where you aim and shoot with the right stick. You can get a little help with auto-aiming when the bullets get in the proximity of the enemies. You can also select full auto aiming. And now, we've added a little Smash TV in the mix. And now I'm hooked. Completely and totally hooked. 

Now that the game has me hooked, it then shows me in the top left corner where these red crystals are going. The crystals are dropped by enemies when they are defeated, and when you shoot and break down clumps of red crystals. When you get enough, they fuse into a blue crystal, and the game tells you that you can upgrade your ship. You have options on how you use this crystal, like stronger fire power, or longer range. The more you upgrade something, the cost of that specific upgrade goes up. If the first upgrade costs one crystal, the next one costs two. You can balance these out, or put all your crystals into one until it's maxed out. Another cool element, is that you can downgrade ANY of your abilities and turn them into crystals at no penalty. There were times where a boss was wrecking me. I took crystals from my ship speed, and upgraded my fire rate. When I defeated the boss, I quickly switched them back out. Keep the coolness coming, Soulgame. 

Once you're out the cave, you free your first friend, and arrive at home base. This is where all your freed friends will end up. And the more you free, the more permanent upgrades you get to your overall game. There are signs in the game to always point you in the right direction, so once you free someone, go back to the home base. There is always something waiting for you at home base once you free these other ships. Your first freed friend allows you to upgrade your gun. That ship wants a different in-game currency in larger red crystals. You can receive large red crystals from larger enemies or mini bosses you will eventually run into while wandering aimlessly around the map. 

There is VERY LITTLE hand holding in this game. The term "large red crystal" is made up. I have no idea what they're called. The game doesn't explain these items to you and it's ok. When you pick up something and you don't have any idea what it is, sometimes it's on the other side of the upgrade/menu screen, sometimes it's not. Roaming will get you a lot of places, and nowhere at the same time. There will be places you simply cannot go because your ship isn't ready. You have to go take down bad guys, and go hit switches, to open up new paths. And you only get three hearts as life, so please don't think your ship doesn't stick. Get your ship together. Eventually, you will find a piece of the map. Just a piece. You can check this map at anytime, by pushing the select button, though it does NOT work in caves or dungeons. 

The map piece you find will fill in and show you where the first underground dungeon is. Again, think the first Legend of Zelda. Rooms with mini bosses, hazards, and even puzzles are all over the place. This game wants you to figure it out. You can't jump over this ramp? Figure it out. You can't get past this boss? Figure it out. Maybe go back out and grind some more. Get some more crystals. Figure it out. And once you do, you'll walk out with a major upgrade to your ship. It will allow you to dash over small pits and bodies of water. Then once you find that, and you find the key, you'll run into the boss of that dungeon. You know...just like The Legend of Zelda. The boss is no pushover either, and will not take your ship lightly. You should show the boss that real ship.  

Now you get to take your newfound powers and explore more. You will find new friends, new upgrades, new enemies, new caverns, and more importantly, new secrets. The game is filled with them. If you think you can't go to these places, you probably don't have the right tools yet. The progression in this game is rock solid. You're presented with a lot of "oooooooooh" moments. There are ways to increase your hearts too, by finding them around the world. There is a friend who will not only show you where all the caves are, but will show you what's in them, and tell you if you have everything out of them. What it doesn't tell you is where to necessarily go next. You will die. And when you do, you start back over at home base. If you die in a dungeon, you go back to the beginning of that dungeon. The more you unlock, upgrade, and explore, the more this game becomes enjoyable. If you're stuck, it's because you missed something. No one is going to make fun of you if you check that map. Stop looking at that playthrough, Joe. You can do this. 

Another thing this game does so well is the wide variety of enemies. At some point, you'll find water or sand dwelling fighter jets, or jumping grasshopper looking robots. There are indestructible turrets, and even enemies who are hidden as full trees. The amount of things you fight in this game are impressive. There's a full mini boss, in the middle of the overworld, that is a snake, covered in stone, and you have to destroy it one stone at a time. There are even enemies hiding behind shields, essentially blocking your path. Once you find your way around it, those enemies are gone. Everyone else respawns every you perish, or you leave an area or cave. If they don't get you by running straight into you, their bullets will. 

The bullets are hailed at you in all shapes, sizes, colors, and erratic patterns. Sometimes they float out there, hoping you move too much and get popped. Others go toward, and past you, only to come back in. The typical orange bullets take one heart. No half hearts here. There are instant death bullets out there too. This is the fun part for me. It's the challenge that makes this game stand out. While I'm going up ramps at full speed, I could get blasted by an off screen enemy. I tried to break a pot, and rush to get what's inside, only for the pot to be a bot, in disguise. A pot bot in disguise. I love this. Everything about this. 

So here you are. Running around with your upgrades, one shot-ing angry roombas and suicide jets, and killing almost everything in your path. Collecting crystals like you're going to be the next chosen one. Navigating through caves, and freeing friends by beating them in races. Or finding old lore and shrines to give you a little more back ground. Destroying things, and unveiling "golden fireflies" to make your ship cool again. The challenge here is thinking that you're the hot ship, when you're really not. The game knows this is coming. The game knows you think you're THE ship. So what does the game do? Send out more difficult enemies. Your enemies for the most part up to this point have been white. These enemies are purple. And they have dark red bullets that reduce your hearts by two with every hit. Back to home base, you little ship. If you're good at the game, you will find and unlock other upgrades to combat and explore more, like a more powerful weapon to break through cracks in the wall, or even something to slow down time. Like bullet time, only cooler. 

I don't want to say much more without spoiling, but I do want to talk about the sound. The sound is SO GOOD! From the subtle adventure music that changes depending on what region you're in, to the sounds of the enemies when you stun or destroy them. The bullets even make noise, but they're not overpowering to the ears. Every single time I defeated the smallest of enemies, there was a satisfying "crackle" to accompany my destruction. Minishoot' Adventures sound is some of the best, most balanced music and sound effects I have heard in a video game in a long time, and you can even adjust the volume of everything in an options menu. 

There is a endgame, and I'll leave that up to you. I've seen someone beat this in 4 hours. It took me 15. For the price, I kind of wanna run back through it on the hardest difficulty, which you can do. There's also some after game content, but I'll leave it at that. This game is too much fun, and I don't think I can call it short without feeling bad. I can now beat The Legend of Zelda in 3-4 hours. I couldn't do that before. You will enjoy this. Soulgame's description is as follows: SoulGame is a small independent game studio founded by two french guys who played too many video games in their childhood and decided they had to make their own. We like to create all sort of quirky and charming universes that we fill with joyful and moving experiences. I can't wait for the next one. You are the chosen. Go and be THE Ship they can't mess with.