Geometry Survivor Review (Switch)

This is an odd one. A long time ago now there was an awesome twin stick shooter by the name of Geometry Wars. It started life as a mini game in Project Gotham Racing 2 and then found a bigger audience via Xbox Live Arcade. There have been several sequels across all platforms, but sadly none of these have reached the Switch yet. Despite the name and look of this game it is not part of that franchise but that doesn’t mean it should simply be ignored.

Geometry Survivor is the latest in an ever-growing sub-genre which mixes twin stick shooting and Rouge-lite elements, the auto shooter. The most famous of this current indie darling genre is Vampire Survivors but you can tell already several hundred more are about to burst through the Steam dam and flood the console marketplaces.

Despite not being part of the Geometry Wars franchise, it certainly looks the part. The same pulsing neon surges around the screen and squares, rectangles and just about every other shape emerges from the play field and charges at you. The sense of speed and chaos isn’t quite there but by the time the countdown is into the last five minutes or so the screen will be continually full of shapes flowing around.

The game works by giving you twenty minutes to survive a continual onslaught of shapes as you move around a rectangular playing field. As you move you will auto fire at the incoming enemies. Collecting exp from dead shapes levels you up which grants new weapons such as back holes that suck shapes in and a host of other creative offensive options. These can then be upgraded so they fire more often and further. There’s a host of different pick ups as well and you can only carry six in one run so getting a good balance is essential for success.

As well as experience you can also pick up credits which can be used to unlock permanent upgrades from the main menu or different ships which carry their own quirks and characteristics. We found collecting enough credits to do anything useful took a long time though so unless you are really planning to put the hours in, you’ll likely not see much of the benefits of this approach.

Overall, despite its seeming simplicity we did find ourselves drawn to the game due to the fact in handles well and the weapons and upgrades are logical and behave in a consistent way. However, there isn’t really anything here that’s going to really hook you and keep you coming back repeatedly. Runs are also hampered a bit by the fact the first ten minutes or so soon become dull. It’s certainly not a bad game, just one unlikely to drag people away from Vampire Survivors.

Overall 6/10