[Review] Curved Space - Nintendo Switch

Developed By: Only By Midnight Ltd.
Published By: Maximum Games
Categories: Shooter
Release Date: 07.13.21

Curved Space. It’s kind of like an arena shooter mixed with a shootemup, with a lot of weapons. Always my idea of a good time.

Curved Space is very much an accurate descriptor of the game. You’re put in small-ish areans, usually looking like a planet, a race track, or some odd shape, and given lots of bugs to destroy. The arenas can get incredibly disorientating with how well…curved they get, but it makes something interesting and it’s better than just a flat track. This gives me some mad F-Zero vibes and I am all for that.

Your goal, more often than not is to be an exterminator of sorts. Big alien bugs seem to be becoming more common and common each day, maybe they’re getting sick of people being told to eat them. This is where the fun part of Curved Space comes in. There are a lot of weapons, not just reskins either. You get the standard missiles, machineguns, shotguns, etc… Then you get homing shots, shots that curve around, some more upclose weapons like my personal favorite, a big saw blade, weed whacker. It feels so good to use the weapons and just totally wreck some stuff up.

On top of all of that, you can get into an overdrive mode. Collect enough energy from those nasty critters and you can go full on Devil Trigger and do insane damage, making powered up versions of every action and weapon. It’s so satisfying. Another big mechanic, which took me a tad to get the hang of, but feels great once you get to it is tethering bugs either together or to energy syphons. You can use this for those overdrives.

One of the game’s advertised features is it’s music. When a game does this, the music better be worth my time. I also (and I’m sure people are sick of me saying it) of the camp that needs a good shootemup to have equally good music Or at least music that fits the mood. Thankfully, Curved Space has fantastic music.

Curved Space has a bit of a lengthy, restrictive tutorial, which lately I’ve found myself not having the patience for. Curved Space throws a bunch of little mechanics at you to remember though, The game has a level up system, with stat boosts and the like. It’s much of a play your way kind of game. Even extending to having branching paths in the game’s main campaign mode.

Say you’re done with the campaign? There’s a trove of replayability in Curved Space. There’s the Arena, to replay a random part of the campaign, a survival mode, and last but not least, Daily Run. Any “new challenge every day” mode in any game is a guarantee to keep players hooked. Completely unrelated genre, but it’s definitely something I loved about some of the Professor Layton games. All of this can be uploading online to show off your score too.

It’s a bit of a slow start with the tutorial and getting used to the curves, but once you get in the groove, Curved Space is great fun. I love shootemups, and seeing Curved Space make a good one, especially in 3D.