Q-YO Blaster Review

Developer: Team Robot Black Hat @TeamRobotBlackHat

Publisher: Forever Entertainment @ForeverEntert

RRP: £8.99

This arcade style bullet hell shooter from Team Robot Black Hat/Forever Entertainment SA has been ported to the Nintendo Switch from the PC (Steam). The story is bare bones, even nonsensical at times with numerous characters having to save the world from space worms. There are grammar and translation errors in places, due to the game being developed from Latin America.

There are three difficulty modes (two available at the start), beginner, normal and expert. Beginner gives the player 10 continues, Normal gives you 6 continues. Beating the game unlocks Arcade Extreme which puts players into even more devilish environment than before.

There are 16 characters to choose from, each with their advantages/disadvantages and unique weapons. These characters are split into three teams which have a special move (Blood Presence is damage based , Microwave is endurance based and Boom is a mixture of Damage/Endurance.)

As with “bullet hell” games, Q-Yo Blaster puts players with enemies shooting out numerous bullets pretty early in the game. The levels are easy at the start, with the bosses (especially in the last two stages) being brutal.

Ladybug on a missile?

Defeating enemies gives the player gems which builds up the power up gauge. There are numerous power ups such as Pulse which builds up the Pulse attack, Bulletstorm which gives out extra bullets  One issue with the main power up gauge is when it’s full it is activated by holding down the fire button and considering the enemies in Q-Yo Blaster, players will accidentally use the power up when they didn’t need to, potentially making it a waste.

At the end of each level, there are options to choose a power-up, ranging from speed increase, bullet dispersion improvements or even an extra life, regardless of difficulty, these choices can make the difference on how far you will get in the story and later bosses.

The story mode should take players around 30 minutes to complete (On beginner at least). One thing to point out is using continues gives the player a huge penalty effectively wiping their score to zero in most cases, so the high score table at the end feels useless, unless players have not all their lives in one setting.

The art style is a mix of anime and obscure cartoonish design from many 90’s edutainment games. Some other reviewers have pointed out that some of the enemy designs are included by Studio MDHR’s Cuphead, but it’s seems like a copy/paste job. Sometimes, it can be hard to see when some enemies come at you e.g. bees/wasps in the second stage due to the background and enemies blending in too well. The sound is decent, but nothing spectacular that stands out to other shoot em ups.

Q-Yo Blaster is a must have for bullet hell fans, if they can deal with occasional unfair mechanics in enemies popping up and the occasional lag. The story like said before, is wacky with it’s characters and their designs.

Score: 7/10

Forever Entertainment SA kindly provided 3DSBlessed with a review code.

Categories: Articles, Home

Tags: bullet hell, eshop, Forever entertainment, indie, nintendo switch, pegi, Q-Yo Blaster, Team robot black hat

This post was written by Cyburn, posted on July 5, 2019 Friday at 7:19 pm