HyperParasite
Nintendo Switch

Developed By : Troglobytes Games
Published By : QubicGames
Category : Action, Arcade, Roguelike, Twin-Stick
Release Date : Apr 03, 2020

Roguelikes and twin-stick controls seem to go perfectly together, almost to the point that when these two things come together it’s almost a sure sign for success. Almost. There’s a lot that goes into it that can either lock in that success, or destroy it in a pixelated instant. HyperParasite is one of the newest entries into this already massive pool of titles, can it be one of the greats to stand out, or will it fall flat right out of the gate?

You’ll find yourself in a world ripped right out of the 80’s. The authorities are warning the entire city about an infective parasite going around, inhabiting citizens and wreaking havoc. Civilians must be vigilant, doing whatever they can to take down the parasite. However, there’s just one trick. In a unique approach, instead of fighting off the alien parasite, you’ll discover that you are the alien parasite.

As the parasite your only goal is causing as much death, mayhem, and destruction in the game’s five zones. Your ultimate goal is to work your way to the Big Red Button to set off a nuke and wipe out the entire city…sinister enough for ya? Well hold on just a minute, because to fight your way to the button you won’t be picking up weapons. No, no, no…you’re a parasite. You’ll need to infect the citizens of the city and use them as your weapons.

Each person acts as a different type of weapon, giving you just about every option you can imagine. They all have their own basic attack they perform, as well as a more powerful special attack which needs to cooldown between uses. There’s the homeless man with a shopping cart that can ram others, a newspaper girl who sends her papers out in a shotgun-like spread, and more powerful ones that can shoot machine guns or deal in explosives.

You’ll always start as just the parasite though, which itself has two moves. The attack sends out a projectile that does minimal damage, but is enough to handle yourself especially in the early areas of the game. It’s other attack is being able to take over a host that is close enough to the parasite. But, you can’t take over just anybody. New enemies will have to first be defeated, and then you’ll need to pick up their brains from the ground to bring back and research more about them so you can infect them in the future.

When you’re not causing endless death and destruction through the city, you’ll be popping your head (or…whatever a parasite has) into Wito’s shop. Here you can buy upgrades to help with your current run like extending the health of your parasite. If you are hit even once outside of a host’s body, the parasite dies and you’ll need to start over, unless you can find or buy some of these upgrades. In the back of Wito’s shop is a room with special machines where you can bring the brains you want to research and help you unlock future hosts to take over.

Everything about HyperParasite is a lot of fun. I’ve said this plenty of times but I’m a sucker for twin-stick games so this pulled me in almost immediately. Thankfully, the gameplay and banging soundtrack to boot were enough to keep me hooked as I kept playing. Combat was a blast to dive into with all the different people to utilize, and it even made the boss arena fights incredibly exciting.

One of my favorite things about this game is that when you do die, the death screen is a flash of a newspaper image, complete with a headline reading “Hero of the Day” and an image of the character that ultimately defeated you. It’s a fun game and the extremely wide variety of characters combined with the procedural generation should mean you never have multiple runs that play the same way.