Swarmriders

Genre: Two-Stick Shooter

Players: 1

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Review:

Swarmriders is a Two-Stick Shooter originally released on PC in 2016 and ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2020. This is a very simple, arcadey experience where you’re fending off a swarm of enemies and must simply survive as long as possible.

Visually, this game is pretty simple, with black and white pixel art visuals highlighted by purple laser blasts, a yellow target, and a yellow or red health indicator. It works, but does nothing to impress. In fact, the smoke caused by your vehicle and your hits on targets can obscure the action, which is frustrating. However, I have to give credit where it’s due – the game’s one music track, Necrodrone, is pretty good, and better than this game deserves.

For the gameplay, this is as basic as it comes – there’s one type of enemy, one type of attack, no terrain to speak of, and all you’re doing is fighting off enemies until you’re overwhelmed. It gets old quickly. And that’s on top of the frustration at how slowly your character moves.

Swarmriders is the sort of game where you will see everything it has to offer in the first 10-20 seconds of playing it. There’s very little here to recommend it over countless other Two-Stick Shooters on the Nintendo Switch. Its sole saving grace is the killer music backing the action, but even that isn’t enough to sustain this boring, one-note game.

tl;dr – Swarmriders is a Two-Stick Shooter where you’re fending off a horde of enemies and trying to survive as long as possible. This game is simple, repetitive, and boring, and the only positive note I have on it is that the music backing the action is damn good. However, that’s not enough to justify buying this game.

Grade: D+

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