Minishoot’ Adventures, I’ve got a bone to pick with you. It’s that apostrophe in your name. See, I’ve got a writing degree. Grammar was drilled into me year after year. I don’t confess to be amazing at it, but I know a strange apostrophe when I see one. It doesn’t appear to be possessive, nor covering for anything that’s missing. Unless the full title is Minishooting Adventures, I suppose. Can’t be a title typo either, as it’s in the actual game title screen. Curious.
Alright, enough being mean. I actually really like Minishoot’ Adventures. It’s a small, simple package of a game. Fun without complications. It’s a twin-stick shooter that takes its inspiration from titles like the original Legend of Zelda and simply polishes up that format. The core gameplay is rock solid, there are a lot of corners to poke around in for secrets and the whole thing has a bright, happy aesthetic. Minor quibbles aside, Minishoot’ Adventures is a pleasant game through and through.
The Shooting of Zelda
Minishoot’ Adventures has two main ingredients. The first is that inspiration from The Legend of Zelda. The main elements are a big open map that’s free to explore and then, within that map, a series of small rooms that only unlock once every enemy is dead. Not to mention dungeons and impossibly huge keys. It all fits together rather well. Exploration is well rewarded for one. Going off the beaten track is constantly rewarded with heart pieces, bits for upgrading your skills or map pieces. Exactly how exploration should be handled.
The reason for all of this exploration is the result of what normally happens when you start a game in a pleasant, colourful world. It immediately goes wrong. In this case, the ‘Unchosen’ returns, tramples over your village and encases all of your friends in crystal. Fortunately, everyone on this planet is a fully armed spaceship; you included. So the best way to save your friends is to shoot everything that moves. As you rescue your friends, you get stronger and can go rescue more. No word on whether the Unchosen is the one that added the apostrophe though (okay, I’ll stop going on about that now).
It’s a deliberately pared back plot. The focus is on poking around in the corners of the world. Fortunately, it’s a rather nice world to explore. It looks great, for one, with a very clean, bright artstyle that’s pleasant on the eyes. The world is generally well-divided into distinct feeling areas too, with yellow deserts contrasting against bright green forests. It also adds slight Metroidvania elements into the mix, with more of the map opening up as you acquire new skills, like being able to float on water. Apparently our spaceships were water soluble before that.
Bullets & Bosses
The other main ingredient in Minishoot’ Adventures‘ tasty stew is a heaping helping of bullet hell shooter. It’s quite common to walk – sorry, fly into a room and have it suddenly filled up with yellow and red orbs of death. I believe I’ve spoke before about my liking of this genre and Minishoot’ Adventures does it very well. The bullets stand out clearly and the movement of our little ship friend is top notch. This is a twin-stick shooter where the sticks seem directly connected to your brain. Turning and evading is beautifully precise, allowing you to perform split-second dodges. Very useful if, say, a giant ship is filling up the entire screen with bullets.
Which brings me neatly to the boss fights. In general, they’re great. They’re nice little tests of the skills we’ve built up in the overworld. They lean into the bullet hell angle strongly. At first, it’s the standard millions-of-bullets format but as time goes on, it moves things onto water, which means you have to fight against inertia too. Minishoot’ Adventures has three main boss fights (discounting final bosses), and I found myself looking forward to them. Which is why I was a bit sad that one dungeon just hands you its prize next to an already long-dead boss. I also feel like some of them drag on a bit too much. The third boss, in particular, just wouldn’t bloody die. It risks shifting things from a test of skill to a test of patience.
I’ve got another, more general issue too. While I like the general world design, the fact that every character you encounter is a spaceship does have some issues. For one, shooting them isn’t amazingly satisfying. The sound of you shooting is a tinny, ‘plink plink’ noise. Like rain on a tin roof. There’s also the issue that we’re a mostly white triangle trying to evade mostly white circles. Trying to keep track of where we are in the mess can be challenging; sometimes my brain just shut down trying to process it all. There’s a case for making our hero’s design more of a colour contrast, is me point.
Minishoot’ Adventures – A Tasty Snack
I’ll give SoulGame credit though, they’ve managed to give our little hero ship a lot of personality. When it picks up items or makes a risky jump, it does a little beep and spin. When you rescue a friend, they both spin and hearts appear over their heads. It’s amazing how little it takes to engage the empathy of a simple human brain. But still, that little touch is emblematic of the whole pleasant atmosphere of Minishoot’ Adventures, even if it does disguise a tricky difficulty curve. In truth, I was quite smitten.
It’s quite a basic game at its core. A big open world with lots of things to find and lots of enemies to shoot. It puts me in mind of a chocolate bar. A pleasant snack of a game. Sure, you could make it more special by adding honeycomb or nuts or what have you, but you’ll never be unhappy eating a chocolate bar. And I was never unhappy playing Minishoot’ Adventures. It’s quite short – 92% complete at eight or so hours – but what we’ve got is a nice, simple and undeniably fun package. Beautifully smooth movement, exciting boss fights and an adorable atmosphere. Shame about the apostrophe, though (I lied).
