Xeodrifter: Short and sweet Metroidvania mission! (Switch)
I'm always on the lookout for Metroidvania style games.
A while back I picked up Xeodrifter (by Renegade Kid) for less than £1 if I recall, and have kept it aside for a rainy day.
Such a day came up recently, so how does it compare to the rest of this cracking genre?
The game puts you in control of an "interstellar drifter" whose ship is hit by an asteroid, damaging his warp core.
He scans four nearby planets and discovers they each have materials which may be used to make repairs.
From there you're free to visit any of the four planets you choose and begin your search for the materials.
As you begin to fill in each of the planet's maps in that classic Metroidvania way, you'll come across upgrade points to customise your weapon and bosses which bestow all kinds of new abilities.
These include, for example, a submarine to explore underwater, a rocket jump to launch yourself skywards and many more.
With each ability you earn, new paths become available to you on each of the four planets, which bring opportunities to re-explore previously off-limits areas.
Remember the underwater tunnel on that planet? Oh yeah, now you can dive down it! That shaft which stretched upwards out of sight on the other planet? Let's go rocket up it!
It sparks that warm feeling of discovery like any other good Metroidvania as your exploration pays off with more and more rewards.
One special ability I really liked allows the player to blip back and forth between the foreground and certain areas in the background (as in the picture above), which opened new paths in some creative ways.
Bosses themselves have a Metroid 2 feel - they're largely similar but come with increasingly dangerous offensive capabilities as you find each one.
I've seen a few reviews saying this is a difficult game, particularly the bosses. I don't think that's necessarily true, but I do think the difficulty curve is a little strange.
You begin the game with three hit points, and if you're not careful you'll be dead in a few seconds as there are plenty of small enemies jumping about for you to knock into.
Your first boss encounter is pretty tense, given you have such a small amount of health.
But you quickly start discovering more health tanks and gun upgrades, which makes the harsh environments a little more tolerable the longer you play.
It isn't like the standard upward difficulty curve is inverted here, but I'd say in my experience the difficulty probably peaks somewhere around or just after the middle.
Towards the end you can find a lot of upgrades which make the last boss pretty doable.
And even if you were not to rely on those upgrades all the time, the bosses all have patterns which you can prepare for once you know what they look like.
Visually, I really like Xeodrifter's style. It makes really nice use of colour combinations and made me think a lot of Metroid.
I also loved its retro-inspired soundtrack, which fit the style of the adventure perfectly.
Xeodrifter took me a few hours to complete overall, and this felt like just a nice length to be honest. It was short and sweet.
This game is definitely worth a play, especially for Metroid fans.
Have you played Xeodrifter? What did you think?
A while back I picked up Xeodrifter (by Renegade Kid) for less than £1 if I recall, and have kept it aside for a rainy day.
Such a day came up recently, so how does it compare to the rest of this cracking genre?
The game puts you in control of an "interstellar drifter" whose ship is hit by an asteroid, damaging his warp core.
He scans four nearby planets and discovers they each have materials which may be used to make repairs.
As you begin to fill in each of the planet's maps in that classic Metroidvania way, you'll come across upgrade points to customise your weapon and bosses which bestow all kinds of new abilities.
These include, for example, a submarine to explore underwater, a rocket jump to launch yourself skywards and many more.
With each ability you earn, new paths become available to you on each of the four planets, which bring opportunities to re-explore previously off-limits areas.
Remember the underwater tunnel on that planet? Oh yeah, now you can dive down it! That shaft which stretched upwards out of sight on the other planet? Let's go rocket up it!
It sparks that warm feeling of discovery like any other good Metroidvania as your exploration pays off with more and more rewards.
Bosses themselves have a Metroid 2 feel - they're largely similar but come with increasingly dangerous offensive capabilities as you find each one.
I've seen a few reviews saying this is a difficult game, particularly the bosses. I don't think that's necessarily true, but I do think the difficulty curve is a little strange.
You begin the game with three hit points, and if you're not careful you'll be dead in a few seconds as there are plenty of small enemies jumping about for you to knock into.
Your first boss encounter is pretty tense, given you have such a small amount of health.
But you quickly start discovering more health tanks and gun upgrades, which makes the harsh environments a little more tolerable the longer you play.
Towards the end you can find a lot of upgrades which make the last boss pretty doable.
And even if you were not to rely on those upgrades all the time, the bosses all have patterns which you can prepare for once you know what they look like.
Visually, I really like Xeodrifter's style. It makes really nice use of colour combinations and made me think a lot of Metroid.
I also loved its retro-inspired soundtrack, which fit the style of the adventure perfectly.
Xeodrifter took me a few hours to complete overall, and this felt like just a nice length to be honest. It was short and sweet.
This game is definitely worth a play, especially for Metroid fans.
Have you played Xeodrifter? What did you think?
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