Switch ‘N’ Shoot

Genre: Shmup / Arcade

Players: 1

.

Review:

Switch ‘N’ Shoot is a Shmup and mobile-style 1-Button Arcade game released on PC in 2016, ported to Nintendo Switch in 2019, then to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2020. This entire game is built on its core premise, where players control a ship that is endlessly moving in one direction until you fire, where it will change directions until you fire again, meaning that firing and movement are both tied to the same mechanic.

It’s an interesting mechanic in theory, but in practice it’s pretty much the only thing Switch ‘N’ Shoot has to offer. For the most part, enemies are little more than simple obstacles to destroy or avoid, and the main challenge just comes from these enemies coming at you with more frequency and the sides of the levels closing in, requiring more frequent input on your part.

And yeah, controlling movement solely by shooting is tricky, making it hard to line up shots, though if you collect enough power-ups you get a split shot that’s a bit easier to use. However, it really seems like the game is relying completely on its poor controls to provide a challenge, and there’s nothing in the enemy design or level design to make things more interesting or less repetitive.

The presentation here makes use of a 2D pixel art retro art style with only one color per object, backed by synthesized music. It’s all nicely retro, but not at all memorable.

In the end, Switch ‘N’ Shoot seems like a prime example of a one-trick pony, and its one trick isn’t even very good. It’s a challenging game, but only due to its deliberately-cumbersome controls. Beyond that, it’s repetitive, shallow, and dull.

tl;dr – Switch ‘N’ Shoot is a Shmup built on the simple mechanic of forcing your ship to change directions when you shoot, with this being the only way to control your movement. It’s a potentially interesting gimmick, but this gimmick is all this game has to offer, with uninventive monotonous gameplay and a challenge level that is absolutely depending on the odd controls to provide the majority of the difficulty. This just is not a very fun game, and I don’t recommend it.

Grade: C-

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Jamie and His Cats, Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Johannes, Francis Obst, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Jared Wark, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}