X-Out Resurfaced Review (Switch)

Recently, we have been seeing the Amiga back catalogue brought back to life. The Evercade has had several Amiga carts released and a handful of other games have made it to modern consoles. Now, we have a remake of 30 year old X-Out, a side scrolling shooter in the style of games like R-Type.

X-Out has a few things that try and set it part from other side scrolling shooters. In terms of it’s design it is set under water so everything has an aquatic theme to it. The other key thing is that you have the option to buy your ships and equipment at the start of each level. This creates a unique risk and reward dynamic where you need to decide if buying one super ship is better than having three or four less equipped ones. And it is a key decision because once your last ship is down it’s game over. There are no continues.

On that note, it’s a real surprise that X-Out Resurfaced doesn’t really cater for new gamers in any way despite being rebuilt from the ground up. There are none of the concessions that most retro remakes now have. You can’t save, there is no rewind function, and you can’t alter any settings such as lives or money. While it’s refreshing to see something stick to its roots, it also makes the game crushingly difficult. Your ship has a life bar but will explode instantly on impact with anything so some of your playthroughs may last minutes to begin with.

The fact there’s no continue option or level select is also frustrating. It’s true that each time you play you’ll likely progress a little further, but it can take seconds to lose all your craft and then you are right back to level 1 again. It’s something that seems unnecessary, especially with a game that isn’t always the most fluid to control. A lot of these shooters at least have level trainer options once you reach certain stages, but not here. 

Overall, X-Out Resurfaced is a strong but crushingly difficult game. Fans of games like R-type will feel at home, but the game really needed some options to try and get new players to connect with it. Anything past the first level is a real challenge and it’s likely a lot of players will spend most of their time in the early stages before feeling they can’t progress. While we are glad to see the game on the Switch, is could have been a lot more fun with more options for players to tinker with.

Overall 6/10