Xeodrifter Review
Describing Renegade Kid’s Xeodrifter without using the word “Metroid” is possible but not really necessary. Xeodrifter makes no attempt, nor should it, to hide its greatest influence. The pilot of a small space craft experiences a broken warp core that makes it impossible to travel far distances. The ship ends up in the midst of 4 planets that contain the resources for some much needed repairs. Exploring the quartet of planets is possible right from the beginning. Xeodrifters is a respecter of your time and as a person with much to do(and play) – I appreciate it.
The actioning and adventuring begin post haste and soon you will be on a planet with creatures to shoot or avoid and environments to discover. Time between finding something you can’t jump over, swim through or access and finding the ability to conquer it is minimal. It is as if Renegade Kid took the Metroid formula and shortened the backtracking and reduced the time spent searching for solutions. While this may not seem that significant, it allowed me to get completely immersed in no time at all. The abilities to go between the foreground/background, reach new heights like a rocket and run on boiling liquid in addition to others are usable in numerous places and open the game up. Renegade Kid also did something different with the weapon power-ups. Each weapon upgrade can be used to tweak your weapons strength, frequency, burst pattern, waviness and more.
I really cannot recommend Xeodrifter enough but if I had to come up with one detractor it would be the boss battles. The battles are fun, challenging and varied in every area except the form the bosses come in. However that minor gripe should not stop you from pulling your wallet out and throwing it at the Nintendo eshop, Steam or both.
Recommendation: Worth a buy – right now
Full Disclosure: The Steam version of this game was provided to GameEnthus by the developer.
Genre: action adventure platformer
Developer: Renegade Kid
Publisher: Renegade Kid
Platform(s): Steam, 3DS
Price: $9.99
Links
http://www.renegadekid.com/xeodrifter.htm
http://GameEnthus.com
http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/gameenthus-podcast
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gameenthus-podcast-video-games/id286435007?mt=2
Scale:
Worth a buy – paying full price for fans of the series or genre makes sense – often includes a caveat
Worth a buy on sale – not quite full price worthy but close, – often includes a caveat
No – borrow it if you must play it
Please no – Don’t waste any time and/or money on it