Flip the Core

Genre: Shmup

Players: 1

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Review:

Flip the Core is a Shmup released on the Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service in 2012 as well as being released on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. This game’s signature mechanic is a dimension-hopping ship that literally shifts back and forth between two different 2-dimensional representations of the same area – one from the top and one from the side.

The presentation uses a mix of 2D and 3D elements, though you’ll only be seeing two dimensions of the 3D elements when you’re not in transition from one dimension to the other. These visuals are colorful but stylistically simple, limiting the potential for them to look in any way impressive.

The graphics in this game are backed by a pretty decent synthesized soundtrack, though you’ll likely have trouble hearing it over all the sounds of gunfire and a robotic voice announcing when you’ve gained an extra level in power for your ship.

On that note, one of the gameplay elements in this game that I don’t care for is the way that your ship powers-up. Or rather, how it powers-down – whenever you use ammo, you expend energy, and using enough of it will actually reduce your ship’s ability to use its arsenal. This leads to players actually trying to conserve ammunition, something that I feel is rarely fun in a Shmup.

Other than that, the gameplay here is reasonably fun and varied, and the game makes good use of the dimension-flipping mechanic. The game will warn you if flipping will place you in a wall, which is nice, but I really wish this game just used the second screen to show the dimension you’d be flipping to (as in games like Mighty Flip Champs). Just using it to show your HUD seems like a waste of space.

Finally, my one other complaint with this game is that the level design seems sparse and uninteresting. You’ll encounter moments where you need to navigate to the center of a blocked-off area and then flip dimensions to proceed, but beyond this the game does little to give its areas any sort of personality.

I don’t mean to sound overly-negative here. Flip the Core is a decent enough Shmup, but in multiple ways it avoids taking the effort that would make this into a better game that fully capitalizes on the core idea’s potential. If you’re a fan of the genre you may enjoy this, but most are probably better off playing better alternatives.

tl;dr – Flip the Core is a Shmup where players literally shift back and forth between two different 2-dimensional representations of the same area. It’s a decent idea, but this game makes multiple design choices that result in the game failing to live up to the full potential of this idea. If you’re a fan of the genre you may still find this game to be worth a look, but most will find their time better-spent elsewhere.

Grade: C+

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