REVIEW – “Minishoot’ Adventures” is anything but mini with its big thrills, progression, and bullet hell challenge

At the end of the game, I felt immense satisfaction. With all but a couple trophies awarded (that I may go back for at some point) and a couple faults worth mentioning, it still felt complete and like something substantial was accomplished. It’s a wonderful playthrough that respects you, your time, money, hard drive space, and effort.

It’s tough being the chosen one. The weight of the world is on your shoulders, there’s a lot of chores to do, and everyone’s shooting bullets at you. Luckily, I’m an avid Star of Providence (FKA Monolith) player so I’m used to the latter and it’s part of what made Minishoot’ Adventures so appealing to me as a game. Even better when there’s not one, but two sticks involved to maneuver and attack at the same time.

There’s just something about seeing a bunch of circles hurdling toward your fragile little body that enthralls the mind. It’s tense, demanding, and makes you achieve superhuman feats like “focusing” and “hand-eye coordination,” but developer SoulGame Studios also incorporated an exploration element to the formula so it’s not all madness all the time. In fact, it’s pretty relaxing at times which is not something you’d expect from a game that has light bullet hell elements (hellements?).

The influence is worn on its sleeve. It’s Legend of Zelda to the bone, just with guns and little ships. Top-down view, overworld map, rewarding open-world exploration, dungeons and holes to dive into for progression and secrets alike, all more appealing aspects. Couple that with the narrative of being the chosen one, summoned to save your friends and take down the unchosen one who has corrupted the land, and it’s hard not to see the DNA. There’s even a cool visual reference to the first Zelda game so it’s not just my own brain being old and looking for nostalgic shots of dopamine.

Honestly, even without things like that, this game provides enough dopamine to fry your synapses. For one thing, Minishoot’ Adventures has a great sense of progression. You start small and weak, frail perhaps, but with time, you’re showered in currency for purchasing perks and items to help you survive and understand the game’s world better. Diet RPG elements show themselves like earning crystals through combat to dump into stat upgrades like increased bullet damage, ship speed, and rate and range of your gun. As long as you’re taking time to pop enemies like crystal pinatas, you’re progressing, and that’s just a swell feeling.

Same with exploring – a moderate effort to look for holes in walls, or shoot the environment to uncover potential things underneath yields rewards and secrets at a near-unprecedented rate. I always felt accomplished and there was constantly something to do or a new area to float into like the baddest (and cutest) little ship in the land. Moving around itself is fun, too. The controls are rock solid and there’s personality and expression to be had, both player-induced and built in by the devs like how your ship does a cute little spin trick when you hit boost right when you hit the edge of a ramp.

Graphics are simple without a wealth of details, but I actually appreciated that when combat kicked in with droves of enemies because the bullets stood out well. There’s no blending of colors or getting lost in the designs of areas, just you, your eyes, and a whole lot of projectiles. I’ll gladly trade Unreal Engine textures and ray tracing for readability like this any day. It’s really got that sort of indie charm that seems pervasive in the industry for decades now, and with a fresher idea like this, it warms the heart to see there’s still plenty of gas in the engine of the scene.

The world of Minishoot’ Adventures is still memorable though. Regions of the world are identifiable and distinct with areas like an expansive and desolate desert, a swamp land, and even a foreboding area that seems to be made of the rotted shells of ancient machines similar to you. My favorite is the southern forest. It’s lush and green, all sides flanking you with trees and foliage. You can’t let your guard down because robots like to stake out in bushes and, well, ambush you. It’s an important area in the late-/post-game as well so you’ll return often.

The music is also supremely calm. The forest’s music is some of the best with twinkly synth melodies and hums that convey the region’s serene attitude despite the animosity from your foes. Some tracks even utilize theremin-like sounds with broad pitches and a haunting effect. I love the bassier tones that liven up songs like the dungeon and overworld themes as well. It’s not Jesper Kyd or chiptunes and honestly, it’s all the better for it. The soundtrack is so smooth and pretty. It reminds me, in spirit anyway, of the kind of some of the progressive ambience that Chris Christodoulou pulled off on the Risk of Rain games.

I played on the default Original difficulty because I’m an OG and I found the challenge pretty fair, maybe even a bit easy overall. Every hit, death, and failure was on me, as was every success and there’s a lot of things to succeed at. I was far from intimidated by slow-moving ships shooting lurching light bullets, but I was often vexed by the death ships later on lobbing darkened voids of pain at the speed of light. There’s stationary sentries, bull-rushing zoomers that seek to crash into you, and daredevils that must have Iron Maiden’s “Aces High” blasting in their cockpits because they’re really gunning for you. Coordinating the movement your ship is capable of (which opens up as time goes on) with your shooting thumb is key. The fact that your gun has a slight homing curve to it also helps with those who aren’t exact in their aim. It’s fun as hell to engage with the game in this way and see what you can achieve.

In the backhalf of the game, it’s all mingled together to test you with diverse waves of enemies. In instances like this, strafing is king, focusing on killing lighter ships first as they’re made from aluminum foil. Darker ships on the other hand are made from steel-reinforced depleted uranium, so you better be hitting your shots and evading when necessary since their shots do double damage. As I alluded to before, the combat for me was very much surmountable, not hitting any particular walls of difficulty, so I’d imagine most players would feel comfortable on Original difficulty. If you’re really about this twin-stick shooter life, maybe start out harder on Advanced difficulty, and if you find yourself getting absolutely blitzed partway through the game, you can tone it down.

I do wish there was a way to get maps for the dungeons. You only get a large overworld map for the game and when you’re in dungeons and hit the map button, you’re simply shown the overworld map with a flashing notification in the middle that says your ship’s position is unknown. Dungeons and other subterranean areas are rarely complicated, but it still feels like a missed opportunity to have detailed mockups of at least the required dungeons for the game, maybe ones that fill out as you traverse through them so you can reference which general areas of it you’ve ransacked already.

And while we’re on the subject of dungeons, four of them are required to unseal the game’s final area, but only three are proper dungeons with rooms to explore, big abilities to unlock, and a turbo boss to dominate at the end. I felt a little let down with the fourth one being a glorified (and slightly more dangerous) runway walk to the final MacGuffin to reach the endgame area.

The game took me barely over nine hours to complete 100%, at least as far as the game’s official tally is concerned. The only thing I didn’t do was max out my stats by grinding fights, but close enough. It’s a little on the short side, but this doesn’t include the optional final gauntlet/arena/boss rush temple you can do which is damn hard. It’s the only stark exception to my difficulty talk earlier, but I’d expect that out of a post-game event that’s literally there to make sure you mastered the game instead of simply beating it. You basically need a special ability powerup that you get from winning races against eight spirits stationed across the world. They’re fun diversions, but the reward you get from all of them is invaluable if you want to slay this particular spire.

All of this for $15 demonstrates a good value for what you get. I felt like I blazed through it pretty quick, but others might rack up a few more hours which is awesome, it’s more time you get to spend in Minishoot’ Adventures‘ warm, inviting world. Tune it to how you like, it can be a bullet hell, bullet heck, or god mode steamroll by activating the game’s accessibility options that can make you invincible, slow the game speed down, or provide infinite energy for your powerful Supershot gun and boosting capabilities.

At the end of the game, I felt immense satisfaction. With all but a couple trophies awarded (that I may go back for at some point) and a couple faults worth mentioning, it still felt complete and like something substantial was accomplished. It’s a wonderful playthrough that respects you, your time, money, hard drive space, and effort. This is yet another awesome indie that deserves support and all the praise it’s getting. Don’t delay – shoot today!