Tesla vs Lovecraft
Nintendo Switch

Publisher – 10tons
Developer – 10tons Ltd
Category – Arcade, Action
Release Date – 03.16.2018

Tesla-coil Twin Stick Shooter

Let me start off by saying i really love a good twin stick shooter.

To me not much feels better than mowing down screens full of enemies in a desperate bid to stay alive.

Telsa vs Lovecraft is a superb example of how to make an amazing twin stick shooter.

Story

You play as Nikola Tesla and on the eve of your greatest inventions unveiling, your laboratory is burned down by the inhuman minions of the horror author H.P. Lovecraft who stands firmly against your creations. Thus begins a battle for the ages. You must annihilate massive amounts of eldritch abominations, and overcome the madness of the old gods with science, hi-tech weaponry and your battle suit pigeon. You must stop Lovecraft from unleashing the hordes of Cthulhu, you are the only one with the technology to do so.

Presentation

Played from a top down perspective as most all twin stick shooters are.

The back drop has a lot of grays and greens but bullets from your arsenal of weapons light up the screen with a flurry of color.

Character models look fine from your top down perspective but when in the enemy viewer their blemishes show.

Lovely map system takes you through three planes of existence. Normal, Ethereal and Eldritch. These act as the different levels of difficulty.

Gameplay

Each level starts by dropping you directly into the fray in your battle suit pigeon. You have but a few seconds to use the suits destructive dash and bevy of bullets to mow down the first few waves of enemies before your suit explodes. From there your on foot, you always start with a basic pistol but will find bigger and better weapons through each run and as you gain xp in each stage Tesla will level up. Each time you gain a level you are granted a selection of two perks, choose wisely because proper perk selection is the difference between owning a level and it owning you. As you gain xp in each stage weapon drops also become more powerful with stronger and more advanced weapon types making their way into play. You will gain xp very quickly at times and its very important to activate any upgrades you have immediately, the faster you have the perks you want or need the better chance at beating a stage you have.

Clearing a stage can be done in around three to five minutes. Each stage being cleared simply by defeating the numerous waves of abominations thrown at you by using your weapons, perks and the ever important teleport, but some stages will have you playing many times before finally getting a load out that will carry you to victory. This will obviously happen more and more the further you get into the game, especially when you make to the Eldritch plane. Each plane plays the same except there are more, smarter and faster enemies to clear out on a stage. Clearing every stage on a plane will bring you to a final encounter will H.P. Lovecraft himself.

After beating the game on Normal you can collect ethereal crystals that will boost abilities in the inventions tab on the main screen, that will make Tesla even more powerful. You can also play local coop and a survival mode that has endless waves of enemies.

Controls

Slightly different from your regular twin stick shooter you move with the left stick and fire with ZR. Your basically never letting go of ZR.

Teleportation is used by pressing L and you will use this alot to get out of harms way. There is a cooldown on teleport so its not unlimited unless you get a epic perk that grants you that ability.

Speaking of you special abilities or “inventions” that can be used by pressing ZL. These special weapons range from mini telsa coils to ethereal blades to missiles.

Verdict

and a pumping score, Tesla vs Lovecraft is a brilliant top down shooter that will keep you pushing to get through to the end. With three difficulty levels to go through there is plenty to do and plenty to kill. Even after beating the main game on all three difficulties i still find myself popping it on to do a quick daily challenge or a run on endless mode. My only gripe is that there could have a been a bit more story considering the source material but its not that uncommon for a game of this type to be low on narrative. If this type of game is your jam don’t wait on this one.