Game: Breakpoint
Genre: Action, Arcade
System: Nintendo Switch (also on PC, PS4 and Xbox One)
Developer|Publisher: Studio Aesthesia | The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild
Age Rating: EU 3+ | US Everyone
Price: UK £4.49 | EU €4,99 | US $4.99
Release Date: September 24th 2020
Review code provided with many thanks to The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild
Quite the Opening
Breakpoint starts things off with a bang. You move your little vector shaped space ship towards the glowing orbs and hit them to reveal the title credits. Its a pretty cool way to introduce the developers, publisher and title of the game itself and certainly left a good starting impression. What then follows is a simple arcade game of destroying all the shapes on the screen to rack up as a high a score as possible.
Space Ships and Melee
On the surface, Breakpoint looks a lot like other retro based space shooters. The graphics are simple and retro-inspired. You play the game in one giant square area and the enemies are various colour shapes. But instead of shooting out white little pellets as you would expect for this type of game you instead use melee weapons. The design at first glance looks a little bizarre and certainly out of the ordinary. I can’t honestly remember the last time I controlled a retro space ship that attacked by swinging a giant axe. But this unusual design ended up working quite well. There are a variety of melee weapons dropped in the game that you can wield like, axes, swords and spears. Each of which carries its own advantages and drawbacks when you’re taking on the horde of enemy shapes in the game.
The axe is a pretty good all-rounder, especially at keeping large crowds of enemies at bay but not so good with the enemies further away whereas the spear kinda offers the reverse pros and cons to this. You can throw your weapons provided you have enough charge to use this handy feature. Each weapon type was fun to discover. I wasn’t so fond of the hammer weapon as it’s range was too short but I kinda liked the game’s style was forcing you to make the most of what you’re given. Each weapon has a light and heavy attack. The latter being particularly handy at smashing enemies for good but it does require a short charge to prepare. It’s a few seconds where you will need to move your ship around and avoid any havoc the enemies push towards you.
As you continue to attack enemies you build up a small circle meter around your ship. When this fills it causes a ‘break’ explosion which takes out all the enemies within its radius. Timing this break right is the key to getting out of tricky situations as well as racking up those high scores.
Small and Contained
Breakpoint is quite a small and contained game. There is only one game mode and three lives to rack up the highest score possible to get your name on a leader board that is all. To some that may not seem like enough. For me, I was fine with this. Back in the retro days, this was often all we would get one simple focused mode that’s addictive and incredibly repayable particularly if you’re into arcade-style games. The small trouble is Breakpoint does release in the shadow of #Funtime from the same publisher. A similar style game ( which I also reviewed) that had more modes and looks quite similar in style though it does play differently. Breakpoint does release at a lower price tag which some may find appealing.
An interesting feature is the ability to play the top players game play-throughs. This allows you the chance to pick up some new tips and maybe adapt your play style if you need it. Additionally, the developers have added several hints and tips in the options menu.
The Point
Breakpoint, while small in content, has a single focused but entertaining game mode that I ended up playing over and over again. I ended up being totally on board with the idea of a space ship having a giant axe. If you love your retro style space shooters this is a coffee game worth checking out.
Final Verdict: I like it
