Game Info
GAME NAME: Super Destronaut
PUBLISHER(S): Petite Games
PLATFORM(S): Nintendo Wii U
GENRE(S): Arcade
A fun game can only hold someone’s attention for so long. There needs to be a goal that players work towards; sometimes its a high score, beating a friends score, or finding a secret. When a game only does one thing, even if its really good the game can become old or boring. That’s the number one problem with Super Destronaut, while its a fun game with very good mechanics the overall game becomes old and has a hard time keeping the players attention from moving on to the next great thing.
For some odd reason Space Invaders seems to be in style at the moment, and its easy to see that Super Destronaut gets most of its influence from games like this. There is nothing wrong with borrowing ideas, but it becomes a bit stale when games don’t try to innovate at the same time. The biggest innovation that Destronaut brings to this genre of games is the random nature of the games which differs from the the same old tired Space Invaders formula.
There are both problems with this style of game mechanic and some interesting gameplay moments. Every time the main Classic mode or the Time Attack mode is started the waves that the players are up against will be random, from the amount of enemies to the types that they may be. This keeps things fresh every time, never knowing who or what you are going to fight is a fun way to approach the overall game. However this makes it impossible to have have a true high score. It’s possible to have a simple wave that will last a few times which and help the score get higher and higher. It’s also possible to have some very hard waves that players will lose faster.
There is no way that comparing scores would even be comparable, not that there is any way to see high scores unless player take to Miiverese. That’s a huge issue with a game like this, players want to see others high scores to see who they need to beat or how their friends are doing. There is no online leaderboards, or even a local top ten on the system. The only thing that happens when players get a new high score is a notification that a new high score was made during the restart and quit options when losing a round. If players miss this notification there is no way to see the high score other than at the top of the screen during a round.
Time attack is a fun mode that has a clock tick down and players lose 15 seconds when they are hit by enemy fire. Players will receive more time for each wave they make it past. This mode suffers from the same problem as the Classic Mode, its all random. There is not a good way to track your best time or share the time to compare with others. It seems that developerss are using Miiverse as a form of leaderboard, which is just lazy.
The Recommendation
Super Destronaut is a fun arcade shooter that is fun while it lasts, but it will be over faster than it took to download it. The random nature is fun and refreshing but it also take away from some of the challenge, and at times it creates too much difficulty for no reason. This game needs to have a high score table, both local and online its 2015 and this is type of game needs to better than average to make an impression.
