[Review] GyroBlade - Nintendo Switch

Developed By: H.T.Project
Published By: Tendokore
Categories: Retro, Shmup
Release Date: 12.19.22

I’ve always sort of preferred horizontal shooters. Not that I dislike vertical shooters, but I just seem to have more of a fondness. That said, I did play a lot of Capcom’s early shooters like the 1940’s series. And GyroBlade really reminds me of those games. In the best way.

It’s simple. Just shoot everything trying to shoot you. You’ll find medals when certain enemies or enough are destroyed and occasionally run into powerups. I noticed two. Green makes your shots more dense, so you’ll shoot more. Red spread its out more. You can mix them up, and you will absolutely tear through waves with the powerups…until a stray shot you weren’t paying attention to gets ya.

If you don’t shoot down as fast as you can, you’re liable to get very overwhelmed. This is when it helps to have those powerups. Otherwise, it can turn into a bullet hell-lite. This can happen at times in boss fights too, which ends up just making it only more devastating to lose your powerups right before you defeat the boss.

The look, the sound, it all has an old school feel. Don’t go in expecting state of the art graphics and music. That’s not the goal. This emulates those old arcade games perfectly in style. I will say, as much as I did like the music…it got old fast.