If you’ve ever subjected yourself to the surreal and brilliant horizontal shooter that is Konami’s classic Parodius or if you’ve yearned for the glory of those relentlessly goofy and bizarre shooting galleries filled with every unrelated object the developers could seemingly stuff in at random, then step right this way because Q-YO Blaster would like a word.
Developed by Team Robot Black Hat, Q-YO Blaster sets its mad stall out early doors with a long-winded, nonsensical and hilariously badly-translated backstory to its tight shooting action. Essentially, and we’re trying really hard here, some “insects” have invaded earth and you and your pals – who include a decapitated dog’s head, Bender-esque robot, sentient killer tomato, and a guy called Brian – set out to aid the planet’s top defence scientist, Mr Cheeks (Rambo hamster), as he prepares to engage the alien insect invaders. Q-YO Blaster has a real sense of swagger about its silliness, as well as solid, addictive gameplay and a beautiful art style that in places evokes the recent Cuphead; backed up by a great soundtrack, it all just sucks you right in for the duration of the ride.
You’ll begin by selecting a team, of which there are three in total, each comprising a different special ability activated in-game by filling up a gauge as you down enemies. 'Microwave' temporarily increases your endurance, 'Blood Presence' flashes across the screen dealing out damage and 'Boom!' is a mixture of both. You’ll then choose from the fifteen heroes on offer and finally pick your superpower – either laser shot or shield, both activated when you fill up your super meter by collecting gems dropped by exploding enemies.
On top of these straightforward mechanics, Q-YO Blaster adds a Pulse ability which turns all onscreen bullets into gems, enabling you to time its use in order to fill your super power at just the right time whilst pulling yourself out of a tight spot – handy for turning the tables on a boss who thinks they’ve got you cornered – and a couple of pickups that will randomly float around the screen topping up your Pulse, or adding two flavours of temporary firepower upgrade.
Levels, of which there are ten, are short and sweet, taking place across some madcap environments and ending with a selection of brilliantly bizarre boss battles. Each one of these is unique and pleasingly tactical, and you’ll need to learn attack patterns here if you want to come out on top without eating into your all-important stack of continues. At the end of each level you’ll also be given the chance to choose a power-up, ranging from speed increase, bullet dispersion improvements or even an extra 1up, and, depending on which difficulty you’re playing on, these choices really do make all the difference to how you fare later down the line when the bigger bosses come out to play.
There are three difficulties on offer: beginner, normal and an unlockable Arcade Extreme mode, each coming with a different number of continues to eat up in order to get across the finish line, nine on easy, seven on normal and infinite on extreme (because it’s that difficult). On easy it took us around thirty minutes to blast through the entire game, which may seem short but the levels are so well designed and the bosses so fun to take on that you’ll instantly be jumping in again and again to try to improve that high score and complete the thing using fewer and fewer continues.
Alongside the standard arcade action, there’s also local split-screen co-op, dividing your Switch screen in two horizontally, one Joy-Con per player, to get stuck into some tag-team insect destruction with a pal. It’s a really tight little package at a budget price and it’s easy to see why it’s been so widely praised over on Steam, where it was released way back in January of 2018 (it’s just a shame we don’t get the CRT scan filter that version comes with, a tiny complaint in the grand scheme of things).
Performance-wise, Q-YO Blaster performs pretty much perfectly in both docked and handheld mode; we may have noticed the tiniest amount of slowdown when things got really hectic, but it’s certainly not a deal-breaker by any means and it’s really just a beautiful thing to behold – bright and energetic and filled with ludicrously inventive enemies blasting spirals of neon bullet chaos in your direction. Also, following on from Rolling Gunner, which we reviewed recently, here is another bullet hell shooter that is surprisingly accessible to newcomers. Sure, it’s horrifically difficult on extreme, and even normal will give you a stiff run for your money, but easy really does strike a sweet spot, and each run starts with a little tutorial to make sure you know what’s what.
If we must be negative, Q-YO Blaster certainly isn't reinventing any wheels here and its gameplay, while fun and addictive, doesn't do anything you haven't seen before; it's straightforward stuff for sure and it's really in its art style, sense of fun and zany collection of heroes and enemies that it truly excels. There are also moments when you'll wish you could manoeuvre just that little bit tighter when surrounded by enemy fire and this is down to controls that, while perfectly functional, aren't the most precise or responsive we've ever seen in the genre. It's got a budget feel, which sounds damning, but we mean it in the best way possible; they do their job fine, you just won't feel like you're a super slick ace pilot at any point, which is probably par for the course when you're actually a decapitated dog's head floating across a science lab with neon bullets shooting out of your mouth.
Conclusion
Q-YO Blaster is a great little tribute to Parodius, filled with inventive enemies and brilliantly designed boss battles. Its gameplay is solid and addictive with a beautiful art-style reminiscent in places of the mighty Cuphead. It’s short and sweet for sure, but it’s got lots of replayability and is perfect for whipping out for a quick blast on quick journeys and, all in all, is yet another cracking addition to the Switch’s ever-growing roster of top quality shmups.
Comments 25
I was wondering how good this would be.
When do we get Sexy Q-YO Blaster?
Looks like yet another purchase, I own all the Parodius games. So this looks great and the nearest I’ll get to a new Parodius.
I picked this up because it was on sale for $5, and for the money it's a very interesting and well made game. Sorta reminds me of Cho Aniki
Looks like the Cuphead team tackling a full on hori shooter with some OK sprite work. I’m not instantly impressed but maybe worth a look?
This is a strange one. I bought it before reading this review but didn’t play it until after. It’s good, but whereas some titles feature what I think of as “premium” pixel-art, this game has a sort of Kemco-like cheapness to it that I can’t quite put a finger on. Still, it’s mostly fun to play but I’d give it a 6/10 on its best day; there are far too many better shooters on the eShop.
Are the screenshots in the article blurry or is that what the game actually looks like? For lack of a better comparison they have the same sort of fuzziness the 16-bit consoles have when hooked up via RF instead of SCART, so I'm not sure if that's what the game's trying to mimic, or if it's just a case of aggressive JPEG compression.
@Joeynator3000 after Chatting Q-Yo Blaster
I don't want to argue about the assessment in this review - everyone's entitled to an opinion - but there are a few things that make me think this was written based on a very limited play time.
There are more difficulties and many, many unlockable weapons beyond the shield and laser. The weapons particularly come so early it's hard to take this review seriously - especially comments about replayability.
I bought this game and I hate it. If 30fps doesn't bother you, you may enjoy it. I wish all games had to list the target frame rate. I never would've bought it if I knew it ran at such an ugly frame rate!
If this released a year or two ago, I would have snapped it up. We have an embarrassment of shmup riches on Switch, so this is a pass.
@JayJ Every Cho Aniki game I've played runs at 60fps and is a delight to play. This game runs at 30fps and looks like moist garbage and I hate it.
@nintendoknife Yes, it looks fuzzy, like you plugged in an old system with a crappy RF cable into an HD TV. Plus I his game runs like crap at 30 fps compared to the 60fps of practically every shmup on NES, SNES, Genesis, PC Engine, etc.
@gangsterswedish I think 30fps looks cheap. This game looks cheap.
@Low only if you like 30fps 2D side scrolling shooters. I think it looks terrible. I deleted it off my Switch after making sure there wasn't some mistake, or some performance mode to make it run smoothly.
@Joeynator3000 Nice. I wish we could get Sexy Parodius on Switch. That would be awesome! And for the record, all the Parodius games run at 60fps while this turd Q Yo blaster runs at 30fps.
@60frames-please Eh, I put it on my SNES Classic. xD
@Joeynator3000 Wait, wasn't Sexy Parodius only on PS1 and Saturn? Oh, and the PSP collections? Anyways, I know there was at least one Parodius game on Super Famicom. I'd like to get an SNES classic just to put Parodius, Famicom Wars, Super Bomberman, and others on it. Not that the game selection included is bad at all.
The SNES had a couple of games, I just know about the original and Sexy. I think the last one is Japanese only but apparently Japanese games can work on NA systems.
So, where is the Psyvariar Delta review so i can finally see a shmup getting a 10/10 on NintendoLife?
On a sidenote, my second favourite standalone shmup release on Switch (so the collections don't count) is now Radirgy Swag which i got from the JP eShop. It'll get a physical western release later this year.
@60frames-please You have an odd gimmick. I mean for one it is hard for me to take you seriously when you call yourself that. I could never understand people like you who are so put off by things like that.
@JayJ Yeah, some people don't mind if a game runs at 30fps, but it makes a huge difference to my eyes. It makes me mad when a game has pretty simple looking graphics, so I assume it runs smoothly at 60fps, then it doesn't!
@60frames-please Okay well... that's unfortunate.
I wanted to get this after reading this review especially as it was 50% off at launch, then in time honoured tradition it gets taken down. Why does this continually happen on the European Eshop???
@JayJ Yeah, I guess it could seem that way, but I really enjoy smooth graphics, so I don't want to lose that enjoyment!
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