Rocket Strike: Deep Space

Genre: Arcade

Players: 1

.

Review:

Rocket Strike, released on Nintendo Switch in 2025, is an Arcade-style game where players navigate a rocket through various obstacle courses to land safely at a landing pad at the end of each level. They do so by spinning the rocket clockwise or counter-clockwise with ZL and ZR, and using its thrust with A.

The presentation here uses dark and grimy-looking 2D visuals that can be a bit confusing at times as to what are background elements and what are foreground elements that need to be dodged. This is paired with an odd choice of soundtrack which seems… funk-inspired? I suppose it’s such an odd choice that it makes the game stand out, but I don’t think it fits the game’s themes or gameplay well.

Speaking of that gameplay, Rocket Strike is absolutely miserable to play. Your ship explodes at the slightest touch from anything, yet it is absurdly difficult to control it. When you spin the ship, this spinning is absurdly slow, yet it oddly continues to spin even after you stop pressing the button. You will die countless times just trying to get off your takeoff landing pad. And as if this wasn’t enough, you’ll also have to worry about running out of your finite amount of fuel too.

The level designs are absurdly simple to the point where in any other game requiring you to navigate them it would be a cakewalk to do so, but due to the abysmal controls here, even these seemingly easy levels become fiendishly difficult to complete.

In the end, do you think that adding challenge by making the controls absolutely terrible makes for a good game? Because I don’t. But apparently the makers of Rocket Strike disagree with me. Unless you somehow think that sounds like a good idea, I suggest you stay away from this game.

tl;dr – Rocket Strike: Deep Space is an Arcade-style game that has you navigating obstacle courses using a rocket that’s miserable to control and explodes upon the slightest impact. This game isn’t fun, it’s just tedious and frustrating. Skip it.

Grade: D-

^{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!}