Hovership Havoc Review

"Pew Pew Rogue-Lite"

Campaign

February 10, 2020 at 7:41pm
By Jason Stettner

This is another rogue-lite experience with a twin stick style of gameplay to it. In a ship, from which there are a few options you’ll battle swarms of mechanical enemies. This takes place in a selection of randomly chosen levels across a series of environments that shift as you progress.

Each main area will feature a boss towards the end of it, and a checkpoint if you can manage to beat it. That’s a nice addition, as these types of games can be tiring to continuously play after facing many deaths. There’s quite a bit of gameplay here in terms of trying to win, and each ship is a separate design entity to try out in terms of leveling it up.

It is just the main situation of gameplay, would have been nice to also have say just an endless survival mode for those that can’t get enough to help round out the experience further. Each level has you needing to survive regularly, and then take out power cells in order to jump ahead. That’s the general goal, unless you’re taking on a boss which does have some variation to what they do when engaging with you.

Gameplay

With this being a twin stick shooter you’re flying around in a ship blasting away. These ships are actually kind of large, so you’ll need to be careful you don’t get caught on edges of the map. There’s a decent level of variation found within the segments that make up the various parts of the campaign you work through.

That being said, with them being randomly chosen you do end up with the same maps a number of times. I didn’t mind this too much, but after a number of plays it did get repetitive if I wasn’t making it very far. You do level up your ship as you play, with permanent upgrades in the main menu or temporary ones during progression.

Maps might also grant you an ability to pin to either bumper, or just a general boost as well. There are a good variety of enemies to face, with many distinct mechanical foes swarming around. I liked how the combat was setup, and the danger of the map layouts. You might get pinned by turrets, or swarmed and need to think quickly. It’s fair in difficulty, and in how you can progress.

The Conclusion

Hovership Havoc is a fine rogue-lite twin stick shooter that delivers a fair bit of gameplay time, and a fun ship to command. It could have used some more content, or something else to round this out. Maybe even another mechanic to make the experience more unique. I do enjoy twin stick shooters, it’s just somewhat generic to a degree.

I did notice minor screen tearing, but visually this was rather appealing overall. They did a good job on this one as it can be fun and a decent challenge. I liked that they didn’t make the rogue-lite elements too ridiculous in terms of giving the player some sense of progression. That aspect was appreciated. A good amount of ships, a fair variation of enemies and the maps are somewhat varied enough to keep it a little fresh as you play.

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Hovership Havoc Review on Xbox One X
Review Code Provided by Snow Day Software

Rating Overall: 6.5