#Funtime Review

"So Much Fun"

Campaign

July 20, 2020 at 11:04pm
By Jason Stettner

I’ll just be straight up about it, this is one of the best twin stick shooters I’ve ever played. I’ve got quite a love of the genre since it takes so many forms, and these more focused old school ones can be absolutely a blast. With that, I felt they just nailed the formula while expanding upon it in a number of interesting ways. To start, there’s a challenge mode featuring over fifty levels to work through. You’re awarded out of three stars based on performance, and each one is wildly different.

What’s quite neat is that the progression sort of teaches you the funky things that this game has to offer. Those quirks grow in complexity and in difficulty as you work through them. As noted there’s a great selection of them, and a wide range of challenges. You get everything from regular score goals, to color based dodging and even the odd boss fight. This has a ton of content to it, as challenges are only part of the experience.

There are a whole fleet of side modes to play with this package as well. These modes all build towards a collective upgrades section. The score you gain will allow you to buy extra lives, some bombs or even higher selection of rapid fire. A brief summary, but the just of what is offered to enhance your combative experience. I somewhat wish there were more options, or perhaps sillier ones yet it’s a fine selection overall. Within this area you get survival; large survival, open survival, waves, zones and funtime.

I’ll now lightly touch upon some of these modes since there are so many. The survival aspects are very straight forward, though open survival is cool because you’re thrown into an asteroid field. In zones you need to hop into colored areas to continue blasting, and funtime is wild so I’ll let you discover that one yourself. There’s a great selection of content here, it’s well rounded and most certainly surprising.

Gameplay

This is a truly beautiful twin stick shooter, it’s got a wide array of vibrant colors and actually uses them. The screen is constantly popping with particle effects, but it’s done in a way that won’t disrupt your viewing experience. The color combinations are fascinating as you’ll either move through lasers using color schemes, battling with them or just enjoying the bright lights throughout.

The arenas are well designed, they feel varied and also have a really bumping track keeping the frantic action moving. There are a ton of distinct enemies, and ways to deal with those very foes. The new abilities you get continue to grow, or well there are many upgrades to get if you’re going the free mode route of upgrading with points you’ve earned.

The objective is also constantly changing. You might be working through a maze, aiming to get a high score or even just surviving. There was always something fresh, generally just being unique and also providing a fair challenge. It gets wild in these arenas of conflict, good thing bombs are present as they do indeed come in handy. This is also cleanly presented, and again the audio is really awesome for keeping everything flowing smoothly. It’s just a very sleek, fast paced and intense twin stick shooter experience.

The Conclusion

#Funtime is an incredibly great twin stick shooter, one of the best I’ve ever played. It’s smooth, fast paced and beautifully presented. It handles so well, looks great and is just fun to play. It has a massive selection of content to enjoy, and it should always keep things fresh.

The challenges are the most varied I’ve ever seen in this type of game. They had some ideas that I never would have even thought of for the genre, some pure innovation quite honestly. Every now and then you just really enjoy a game with this one standing out clearly to me.

I was seriously impressed as I do enjoy this genre and have played many takes on what a twin stick shooter is. This will most certainly be a memorable one with a name that does actually make a lot of sense for what this is. It’s fun, a really enjoyable time that presents so many ways to interact with it.

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#Funtime Review on Xbox One X
Review Code Provided by The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild

Rating Overall: 9.5