[Review] Tesla Force - Nintendo Switch

Developed and Published By: 10tons
Categories: Roguelite, Twin stick shooter
Release Date: 03.24.21

A twin stick shooter with lots of weapons, a steampunk retro feel, roguelike elements, and a general Lovecraft inspiration seeping throughout? Not to mention with a mech suit? Tesla Force has my vote.

The Switch has a lot of roguelite type games, and endless amount, so describing how those function is going to be brief. Random stages, lots of powerups, and stacking perks. We have that, but now with twin stick shooting, which I’m always a fan of. Shooting feels good and you’ll be doing it a lot since the hoards you deal with can and will most definitely become massive. You can pick up special attacks that use a charge for even more force to use, the X Ray blade giving you some quick close quarters offence is a great one. You need to pay mind to how much you shoot however, as guns will need to reload, which if you don’t plan out right, can leave you in a pickle. You can have a phasing dash to get you out of harm’s way, but that has a cool down you’ll also need to be mindful of.

Once you complete a stage, you get a reward, either a powerup or a stronger gun. The powerups range from the standard quicker shooting and reloading to fun perks like flame bullets, poison bullets, your dodge leaving an explosion, and so on. Getting enough stacked with stronger weapons make you unstoppable.

While you get a handful of areas to fight in, if it’s not in one of the city areas, it’s a sadly generic field. I do suppose the environment is the last thing I should pay attention to when you’re fighting so many enemies, but so many of the stages look exactly the same. Luckily, each stage gets their own challenge. Survive while researching, find parts and repair machinery, destroy demonic statues, or closing Aether rifts. Do well enough and you can challenge boss levels.

The music is great and reminds me of another Lovecraft inspired piece of media, being In the Mouth of Madness. Music in the heat of action particularly reminds me of the film’s main theme.

The more you play, the more the game opens up to you. The crystals you gain can be used to get new weapons, permanent abilities, perks like getting more loot or armor for your mechsuit. There’s a lot to keep a player busy. It sure kept me busy and despite needing to grind a tad to get certain things I wanted, it never felt like a grind. You do well enough and it won’t be a grind.