A Topsy Turvy Life: Turvys Strike Back

Genre: Arcade / Shmup / Misc.

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Same System)

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Review:

Turvys Strike Back is a Shmup… sorta’… released on the Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service in 2010 and then grandfathered into the Nintendo 3DS eShop when that system was released. As with the other game in the A Topsy Turvy Life series, Turvy Drops, this game has players playing with their Nintendo DSi/Nintendo 3DS turned upside-down, playing primarily with the touchscreen. And likewise, this game flips the script on a typical game genre – this is a Shmup, but players are taking the role of the opposing forces in a Shmup-style game.

The presentation here presents players with a fairly standard Shmup presentation with a few quirky differences, with pixel art representing the ships with a repetitive background, but with over-the-top bombastic music and sound effects that… honestly sound like the hero yelping as he tries to dodge your incoming horde of ships.

So the gameplay here works like this – with the Nintendo 3DS upside-down and the touchscreen at the top, you have a limited number of ships that appear in each level. Some have you draw a path that they will continue on to do a kamikaze run on the hero’s ship, some can be moved and tapped to fire downward, and once you’ve exhausted your mooks you’ll have a boss ship that can be moved and tapped to fire a large projectile downward. Meanwhile, the hero’s ship on what is now the bottom screen is trying to shoot your ships down and avoid your attempts to kill him, much as you would be doing in a Shmup.

This re-imagining of the genre is delightfully creative, though it doesn’t take long to run out of steam. Everything gets pretty repetitive quickly, and while both your capabilities and the enemy ship’s increase as you go up in level, it’s still largely the same few actions repeated.

I will take a moment to make special note of this game’s inspired same-system multiplayer, which has a second player grabbing the other side of the Nintendo 3DS and controlling the game… well, like a normal Shmup. This is a really clever way to do asymmetrical multiplayer, and one of the most delightful surprises about this game.

Ultimately, I feel like this game could use a bit more variety to fully take advantage of its core concept, but this is such a wildly inventive idea that I have to give it credit for presenting players with something truly original, and with a wonderfully unique multiplayer mode, too. For only $2, this is definitely a game worth checking out on the Nintendo 3DS eShop before that eShop closes in March 2023 (later this month!).

tl;dr – Turvys Strike Back is a game that takes the Shmup genre and flips it upside-down… literally. This game is played by turning the Nintendo 3DS upside-down and using the touchscreen to direct enemies in a Shmup to try to take out the hero. It’s an inspired idea, with a truly excellent multiplayer mode, and while it is sadly a bit too repetitive, its $2 price tag makes this an easy game to pick up, since you won’t play anything else quite like it.

Grade: B-

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