Switch Review: Super Star Path

Although I've written a few reviews before, this is the first one in a long time. I've chosen a game that doesn't cost much on the Switch eShop (£4.99) and doesn't have any reviews. Hoping to write more reviews soon.

Super Star Path is a vertical scrolling shooter. The story is pretty thin: enemies stealing jewels, basically. You control a ship, you shoot stuff, and make your way through the levels to the end.

Except there's a bit more to it than that.

Super Star Path - Nintendo Switch

You start off with a view of five planets, each of which can be selected. Clearing all five unlocks a sixth. However, you're best off playing them in sequence, as they get progressively trickier. It would be nice if there was a planet name, stage number, or difficulty indicator, as it's not that obvious which stage is which.

Clearing stages also unlocks more ships, some of which have special abilities. Usually these give better defence against certain types of attack or object, which honestly I didn't see much difference with. A couple of the ships are super useful, though. One allows you to destroy certain blocks, which is pretty much essential in one of the stages. Another has diagonal shots in the boss battles, which is pretty handy.

Super Star Path - Nintendo Switch

Gameplay may look like a simple case of shooting the aliens, but it's a bit more complex than that. Where you've got a group of aliens of the same colour, destroying one has a chain reaction effect that destroys the entire group. Whereas with lone aliens, shooting one can result in it becoming frozen, thereby being an obstacle that can't be removed. This is most likely where the game's title comes from - you're clearing a path through the aliens.

In practice, this can be satisfying (when lots of aliens are cleared at once) or a major annoyance. Sometimes I wasn't sure of the reason why an enemy became frozen - especially as the screen is scrolling all the time, albeit fairly slowly - you don't always have time to stop and think about what's going to happen. Though, it does mean you might not want to shoot everything in sight, and instead plan your route with a bit of strategy and puzzle-solving. It's a nice idea in theory, but honestly it doesn't work that well given the fact you're also needing quick reflexes to dodge the bullets as the levels get tougher. All too often, I ended up in a dead end with nothing to do but restart the level.

Super Star Path - Nintendo Switch

But despite this, I found myself replaying the levels. The levels are short and there's only six in total, but the layout is random every time, and there are six collectibles on every stage that are worth getting. The three emeralds are tied to the story - I assume you can't unlock the final stage without all of them, but I never defeated one of the bosses without getting all of them anyway, so I was never blocked from progressing. The other collectibles allow you to upgrade your ship, boosting the defence, attack, and movement by 1 unit per item collected.

This adds quite a bit of strategy to the mix. It's not that hard to get all the collectibles, but with them being in limited supply and there being 10 ships in total, you're left with a dilemma. Do you upgrade the low level ships to help you early on? Or do you tough it out and save the upgrades for later? I found that the strongest ships are good even without upgrades, but saving a couple of upgrades is worthwhile. Also, with some of the ships offering unique abilities, you need to think carefully about what you want to upgrade.

Super Star Path - Nintendo Switch

Every stage has some kind of special enemy or obstacle, starting with slow-moving enemies that don't pose too much of a threat, to some particularly nasty ones, such as spikes, bombs, guns that shoot at you, and lasers. It gets pretty difficult, but you do have a few life points (and these can be upgraded), so it's not a one-hit-kill kind of deal. The difficulty is adjustable, which mostly seems to affect the number of hits everything takes to kill. I'm not great at difficult games so I dialled it down to Easy, and didn't find it a walk in the park, but I still had fun.

Another thing about collectibles. Defeating one of the aliens gives you either a blue gem (worth 1 gem) or a red gem (worth 5). These are used for unlocking ships - new ships become available, but you still have to pay for them to actually use them. However, your gems become useless pretty quickly. It feels like it would've been good to have depletable special attacks (bombs would be good!) that are locked behind 500-1000 gems per purchase. This would've made gem collecting worth doing, without making it too easy.

The graphics look fine - very in keeping with a retro arcade shooter - and the music is good enough. The pilot says things as you play, but this quickly gets annoying as he only has a few lines. We don't really need to know that "those crystallised aliens can't be destroyed" in every level.

Now... the bosses. They are pretty tricky, but all quite similar. Each one has a range of attacks and a fleet of smaller enemies that get in the way and shoot back. The main problem is that some of the attacks are super difficult to avoid, and you never know what's coming next - there doesn't seem to be a pattern. Winning is often down to luck. I did find that it's sometimes possible to get out of the way by moving above the boss - but it's not a great tactic except for a breather. It's not a fully space spot, you can't hit the boss up here, and some of the later bosses can shoot upwards!

Your best bet is to get as much life as you can (without using up all of your life upgrades), and hold onto it for the duration of the stage. Easier said than done - but I did find that stages became something of a stealth mission, often restarting the stage if I took more than 1 or 2 hits. Oh, and the diagonal shots can help too.

Here's a video of my incredibly lucky defeat of one of the bosses. I was very close to being hit on several occasions in this video.

So, what's the verdict? Super Star Path is an odd game. It's short and sweet, but it's not particularly expensive. The mechanics are odd and you do end up in dead-ends all too often. But the ships and the upgrades are pretty good. It's not a bad game, but not the greatest by any stretch. Despite its flaws I found myself replaying the stages quite a bit. However, it probably won't take up more than a few hours of your time at most.

Rating: 5/10

Published: 18th Jun 2020 13:03

Super Star Path
Infobox
Title Super Star Path
Average rating 6.00
eShop price £4.99
Europe release 11th Apr 2019
Players 1
Developer(s)
Publisher(s) Dya Games

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