Destropolis is a minimalist twin stick shooter where you’re a square shooting other squares.  Zap the cubes to collect power-ups and weapons to level up and select skills to reach as high of a score as you can.  It’s available on Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

You control a glowing diamond and can move around with the L stick.  Aim with the R stick and fire with the R shoulder button.  You’ll blast stationary cubes that look like buildings, as well as red squares that can attack and damage you.  You can take multiple hits, thankfully, but once you run out of energy, you’ll explode and it’s Game Over.  When you shoot enough red squares, you’ll level up and can pick a skill. These skills can raise your rate of fire, defense, power, and more.  Try to get as high of a score as you can.  Up to three can play co-op, and you can upload your high scores to a leaderboard if you’re connected to the internet.

As you play, other power-ups will appear as yellow or blue pillars.  Yellow ones are temporary power-ups, and include things like bullet time which slows things down, air raids from above, double points, and more.  Blue power-ups are weapons, and you must press a button to pick them up.  These include things like spread shots, laser beams, and others.  These last for a short while before reverting back to your original weapon.

Really the only problem I had with this game is the controls.  They aren’t bad, but I don’t like that you have to press a separate button to fire.  Just aiming with the control stick should automatically make you shoot.  Plus I didn’t like having to press a button to pick up weapons.  I know they did this so you could choose to keep your current one, but usually they appear around when you run out of ammo for your current weapon.  It just would’ve streamlined things a bit to do it my way, I think.  So while Destropolis is no Geometry Wars, it’s still fun if you like those kinds of games.

Kid Factor:

Destropolis is rated E-10 with an ESRB descriptor of Fantasy Violence.  You’re a square that zaps blasts of light at other squares, so I don’t think it’s really that violent at all. Reading skill is helpful for the text, though.

Tags: Game Reviews