Super XYX – PS5 Review


Super XYX is a vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up that comes from indie dev Team Grybanser Fox and is published by eastasiasoft, as so many modern indie shoot ’em ups are.  And it feels very much in keeping with a lot of other eastasiasoft shooters, even if this is the first partnership between them.

The generic plot is easily skipped (blah… blah….  3999… blah… colonisation…) and so you’ll quickly be into the game itself (although it is worth exploring the slightly fiddly main menu as it is stacked with options).  You initially get a choice of two ships, your standard forward blaster and the equally standard spread-fire variant.  And then it’s on to six levels of typical shoot ’em up fare.  You know the deal, you’re at the bottom, enemies arrive from the top or sides (and occasionally from below which will catch you out a few times) and you’ve got to blast them off of the play area.

Early impressions are interesting but mixed.  Sure, we’ve seen so many of these type of games on PSN and throughout gaming history, so it’s not exactly the most original game ever but the presentation is solid and the action is full-on.  This isn’t an easy game to get into as the pace it moves at can be a bit intimidating at first.  This feels like it might be easier on something like a Steamdeck because on a big screen, it’s kind of hard to take it all in.

Enemies fly through the screen at high speed and can soon put a lot of bullets in your way and the colour contrasting isn’t brilliant so it can be hard to pick out bullets.  And, at first, we were just getting our arses handed to us by the game.  This isn’t one that you’ll get through without some skill and a bit of memorisation.  Luckily, power-ups come quite frequently and either increase the amount of firepower you dish out or add a couple of drone wingmen to also bolster your attack.  You also have a very useful screen-clearing bomb as well as buttons for slowing down your ship (for weaving through tricky bullet patterns) and for changing the formation of your drones.

We mentioned this feels in keeping with eastasiasoft’s other shooters and that is down to the difficulty curve.  They always have a way of starting off being intimidatingly difficult before you eventually level yourself up as a player and start making progress.  Not in the ‘upgrade your stats’ kind of way but in a ‘just get good’ one.  And that was definitely the case here.  It’s definitely harder than their usual standard though.  Most players won’t get a sniff of the Platinum trophy and it certainly took us a while to even beat the final level (and that’s without us finding the bonus ‘true’ final level).  Yep, this is a legit shoot ’em up alright and one that you’ll have to earn your 1CC on.

The game also likes unlocks.  Generally earned for finishing the game a number of times, you can earn at least four extra characters/ships to play as as well as new game modes.   It’s not always clear what the conditions for unlocking certain things are but we got everything we wanted by just rinsing the Boss Rush mode as that was easier than the main game.  Usually shoot ’em up bosses represent big jumps in difficulty but here they’re actually pretty easy to beat.

The game opts for a 16-bit console look, rather than an arcade one, and it’s okay.  The visuals are bold, colourful and quite detailed but, as we said before, bullet clarity can be a real issue.  These days we won’t accept anything less than the sort of clarity that a Cave game offers.  Just make them bright pink and don’t use that colour anywhere else.  That said, it’s not a game-ruining issue by any means.  We were still able to get through the game but we’d not feel comfortable trying to 1CC the game knowing that a rogue bullet could take us out from anywhere.

This is a great effort though.  The breadth of options and unlockables show that the developer wasn’t just looking to put out a quick and easy shooter.  There’s some real depth here and it’s a game that should appeal to hardcore shoot ’em up fans while still being accessible enough for regular players.  And at just under a tenner, it’s a little pricier than eastasiasoft’s usual output but will definitely offer a lot more value for money than their usual one hour platinums.

Super XYX
7 Overall
Pros
+ Solid shoot 'em up action
+ Bosses, refreshingly, aren't a chore to deal with
+ Nice graphics
+ Plenty of unlocks
+ Good level of challenge
Cons
- Quite short (although that might be a good thing)
- Visual clarity isn't always the best
- Quite difficult from the start
Summary
Super XYX is a solid shoot 'em up made by people who clearly love and understand the genre.

 

 

 

 


About Richie

Rich is the editor of PlayStation Country. He likes his games lemony and low-budget with a lot of charm. This isn't his photo. That'll be Rik Mayall.

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