Aperion Cyberstorm is a colorful and fast-paced twin-stick shooter now available for Nintendo Switch. Learn more about it in our Aperion Cyberstorm review!
The game offers single-player and multiplayer modes for up to five players plus co-op, which is not bad for a small indie studio! I was quite impressed with the gameplay, and the amount of content on offer, as there are plenty of ships to play around with once you have unlocked them – each ship has different stats for speed, health, armor and so on. Gameplay is silky smooth on the Switch, and I was having so much fin that I ended up playing for a while in handheld mode. The multiplayer portion is best played on the big screen with a group of friends due to how hectic things can get.
Once you have selected your ship, you will notice you only have two weapons to start with, which you need to manually assign them. As you progress through the campaign, you will unlock a further 10+ weapons, and with a little bit of experimentation, you can potentially find a deadly combo between your primary and secondary weapons to destroy your enemies. Alongside health drops, you also have an array of power-ups that will have different effects on your ship, from stronger shield defenses to slowing down your enemies.
In the campaign mode, which is the meat of the game, you can travel across multiple planets and uncover 200+ areas. As you progress through the campaign enemies will get tougher, but with a dozen ships to use and many abilities at your disposal, you’ll be able to keep up with the difficulty bump. It’s a fun campaign with a small story narrative to keep things going.
Along with the main campaign, you have a versus mode which you can play with up to five people or if you prefer you can play against AI players. You can unlock additional maps by playing through all the modes, increasing the amount of content available for you to play with.
The game is extremely accessible for players of all skill levels since you can alter the difficulty, the controls are deliberately designed for players who have little experience in the genre. Also, for those who are visually impaired, you can scale the text up or down for better readability. Not many games do this in this day and age when reading in-game text is getting more and more difficult, so kudos to aPriori for adding font resize options.
As for the maps, they are so brilliantly designed, and display realtime lighting along with the colorful firepower from each player’s ship and the other enemies attacking you. Once the action gets going, you’ll find yourself “in the zone,” mesmerized by all the color around you as you evade the attacks of your enemies as you give it your all to destroy them as fast as possible.
The only small complaint I have for the game is that the multiplayer is only for local play, and that online play would definitely be a plus for this game. It’s understandable that a release from a small indie team doesn’t have an online multiplayer mode, but who knows, perhaps it is something the team can work on if sales are good enough for the game.
Aperion Cyberstorm is game with a concept that is simple and very accessible, with no overbearing menus to confuse players. The graphics are minimalist but present a colorful explosion on your screen once the action gets going. There is more than enough content for you to experience either on your own or with a bunch of friends, and you can even use AI controlled ships for your adventure if you need to. This is a solid indie release on Switch and one you need to play.
Disclaimer
This Aperion Cyberstorm review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by aPriori Digital.
