Xeodrifter Switch NSP Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

Xeodrifter Switch NSP Free Download GAMESPACK.NET Nowadays, Metroidvanias are all the rage with indie developers, all attempting to offer up their own unique take on the genre. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but there’s something to be said about the power of simplicity and just going back to the basics. Xeodrifter is a game that plays it straight with the that open-ended formula, offering up a focused, concise experience that hits all the notes it needs to, even if it comes off as being considerably more barebones than its peers. The story of Xeodrifter sees the titular character flying their spaceship through the stars, only to have it crippled when a meteor strikes. You then must travel between a system of four planets, running, jumping, and shooting your way through hordes of aliens as you search for a warp core to replace your damaged one. Along the way, you’ll pick up several upgrades that grant your character meaningful bonuses in traversal and combat. Gameplay in Xeodrifter follows the tried-and-true Super Metroid formula, doing little to expand on it, but showing mastery of what makes the genre great. Controls are a little loose, but the gunplay and platforming still manages to feel rock solid and is an absolute blast to tackle. TOP/BEST ADULT VIDEO GAMES IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (USA)

Xeodrifter Switch NSP Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

There’s a near perfect mixture of platforming challenges, combat, and backtracking here, with the flow of the game taking you around the four planets at a brisk and exciting pace. Memorizing enemy patterns and snagging new upgrades feel quite satisfying, and you’ll frequently find yourself looking ahead to the next thing you can do. Each boss you defeat will drop another upgrade that allows you to access more of the map than before, and you can also pick up health and gun upgrades to augment your combat performance. The gun modification is one of the stronger aspects of Xeodrifter, offering you an RPG-lite way of controlling the character’s offensive options. You can invest gun upgrades into shot speed, power, spread, range, and reach, which leaves plenty of room for mixing and matching of attributes to meet your playstyle. It’s a bit of a shame that the enemy resistance seldom demands that you switch up tactics, but the customization aspect nonetheless adds a little bit more scope for replay value on subsequent runs. Level design of the planets is well thought out, though they can tend to feel a less mazelike than one would expect from a Metroidvania.

Navigate your ship between neighboring planets.

Exploration is still encouraged and backtracking to other planets after getting an upgrade almost always yields new results, but there’s a lingering sense of linearity to the experience that stifles one’s sense of freedom somewhat. Each planet is essentially composed of a couple loops of corridors with a few secret passages scattered here or there, which means that it’s next to impossible to get lost or find yourself stumbling upon an upgrade by accident. Some might appreciate this stripped back approach, but let’s just say there are a lot less surprises in Xeodrifter than you might expect to find in a game in this genre. From a presentation perspective, Xeodrifter is top-notch, demonstrating the concept of design by subtraction quite well. The HD 8-Bit art style is demonstrated to great effect; managing to capture the look and feel of a retro game while retaining cool elements that only modern hardware could manage. Though environment design tends to get a bit repetitive, there’s plenty of color and smooth animation here that keeps things visually interesting. Similarly, the sci-fi soundtrack matches the theme perfectly, capturing a sense of mystery and wonder quite well. Batora: Lost Haven

Xeodrifter Switch NSP Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

The Switch version also features HD Rumble support, which is utilized to a greater effect here than you might think. Whether it be a missed shot impacting a wall or the rumbling of a submarine engine, you can feel just about every single kind of movement that happens on screen, which helps to significantly increase the immersion factor. One of the most significant criticisms we have with Xeodrifter is that it feels a little too stripped back for its own good. There’s only a handful of enemies to fight across the entire game, and every boss fight consists of battling a palette swapped version of the previous boss with a little more health and one new attack. Couple this with the straightforward level design, and you’ve got a rather predictable open-ended platformer that can be cleared 100% in around three hours. Now, those three hours are a joy to play through while they last, but it feels like a bit of a let down when the credits roll and there’s nothing more to see. Xeodrifter has all the elements it needs to be considered one of the greatest games in the genre, but there simply isn’t enough content present to hold one’s interest for very long.

Classic 2D platforming, shooting, and exploration gameplay.

The original Metroid has inspired plenty of games over the years, but few of them wear it on their sleeves quite as earnestly as Xeodrifter. Spanning four short, monster-filled alien worlds, Xeodrifter’s quasi-8-bit art style, moody sci-fi trappings, and nonlinear, item-driven exploration all seem clearly meant to evoke Samus Aran’s 2D adventures. Flexible weapon upgrades and clever ideas for interacting with the background elevate it above derivative-clone status, but it also fails to live up to its inspiration’s standards for enemy and boss-battle variety. Xeodrifter revolves around a little astronaut whose warp engine dies around a cluster of four planets, forcing him to scour their caves them in search of a replacement. It’s four to six hours of the usual stuff – if water’s blocking your way, for example, you need to be able to turn into a submarine, while scaling the heights of tall shafts usually requires a jetpack. The cool platforming twist is that you can jump into the distant background, which is actually a parallel plane, turning you into a tiny astronaut fighting tiny monsters until you can work your way past whatever obstacle has been set in front of you and leap back into the foreground. General Practitioner

Xeodrifter Switch NSP Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

This puts the Nintendo 3DS’ 3D effect to excellent use, which – along with being able to see level maps and tweak your guns on the touchscreen, rather than a less-elegant pause screen – edges it ahead of the PC version. Xeodrifter takes an interesting approach to weapon upgrades, too. Scattered around its four worlds are health points and gun points, and the latter can be redistributed freely across five different categories. These can make your shots faster, more powerful, or more frequent, as well as scattering them in three different directions or making them move in wavelike patterns, letting you tinker with your starting pea-shooter until it suits your play style. (And you’ll need to tinker, because apart from some vague icons, there’s no clear indicator of what each category does.) You can also re-spec your gun at any time, as well as store three different configurations for fast switching. It’s a fun feature, and it kept me experimenting and searching for hidden gun points even after the credits rolled. While gun points just lie around in the open, however, the six exploration-enabling abilities are earned through boss fights – and here’s where things start to feel unambitious.

Epic boss encounters that test your skills.

Xeodrifter’s a pretty short game, but even so, its pool of enemies is pretty small. Not only will you frequently encounter the same handful of palette-swapped creatures from world to world, which diminishes the distinctness created by their different environments, but the bosses are always the same type of monster: a giant, semi-adorable mantis-hedgehog thing with easy-to-spot attack patterns. These patterns stay the same from boss to boss; each subsequent creature adds something new, like a seemingly impenetrable energy shield that emits gigantic laser blasts, or the ability to belch miniature versions of itself into existence, but it also retains all of the previous bosses’ abilities. It’s a strangely fun approach – dodging a familiar attack from a new boss and dealing a ton of damage in return is awfully satisfying – but the lack of variety also means there’s very little thought involved. Knowing enough tricks to quickly smash the final boss might make you feel like a badass, but it’s only because you’ve already had too much practice for the beast to be much of a challenge.

As was to be expected from Renegade Kid when it was still active (now Jools Watsham’s Atooi), Xeodrifter embodies the team’s seemingly endless charm. The soundtrack is pleasant, with a fair share of catchy tunes, the graphics are simplistic but not without a defined style, and the colour palette allows the sprites and backgrounds to pop together in an easy on the eyes blend. When it comes to pure aesthetics, it’s hard not to appreciate Renegade Kid’s charismatic production. While that charm tends to leak into the gameplay quite frequently, take Mutant Mudds for example, this isn’t exactly the case here.It should be stated that Xeodrifter is by no means bad. It accomplishes its goal of being a bite-sized Metroidvania and it does it creatively enough. The problem, instead, ends up being the creativity taken in crafting such a short-term, exploration-based, action-platformer. In place of an interconnected map commonly found within the genre, the world is split into four, smaller maps. In theory, these four worlds are an interesting alternative. The developer doesn’t need to worry how each section interconnects with the other and can instead focus on a tighter, more consistent layout.

Xeodrifter Switch NSP Free Download GAMESPACK.NET

The actual end result, however, does very little with the separation. The four maps don’t benefit from being apart as they don’t really offer any kind of specifically self-contained exploration.The disconnect between the four maps likewise leads to a disconnect between travelling from world to world. Backtracking is to be expected in a Metroidvania, but it’s typically paced in a way where most players don’t realise they are backtracking until the deed is done. Because of the inclusion of a pseudo-hub, backtracking between maps is painfully obvious. It also naturally leads to another issue: false non-linearity. While the four worlds are all available from the start, there is an actual intended order. Again, this is something common for the genre but it comes off poor when most of the map is available at once, even though progress is impossible in most areas. It also takes away from that feeling of stumbling onto an unreachable area early on only to return later with the proper upgrades. This still happens, of course, but it doesn’t feel as natural or meaningful since players aren’t guaranteed to try their hand at the same order of worlds. The gameplay is another great idea that isn’t handled with the grace it needs to thrive. Batora: Lost Haven

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