Developer: Lichthund
Publisher: Crunching Koalas
Release Date: 7th September
Price as of Article: $9.99 USD, £8.99
You are the Lichtmeister, a plaything for a twisted germanic god who decides to pit you against the odds armed with nothing but your Lichtspeer, a fluorescent pink spear of light. You journey through a series of strange lands guided by a god with a great sense of humour!
As you progress you don’t experience a lot more of the story than this original opening scene which gets you started.
The game features nice sounds but what really makes the audio is the self declared bombastich space-soundtrack by Marcin Sonnenberg, each level has a unique feel and unique song to bring out its character.
A particular favourite appears on level 6 – a club tune that had me slaying hipster giants and wurst zombies in a rhythmic trance.
Licthspeer features some gorgeous artistic design – each level is unique and colourful – everything has a geometric feel.
The character and enemies have a puppet like motion highlighting the small design team which slightly lets down the overall aesthetics, but this is made up for by the range and unique characters and interactive section of attacking waves.
Each of your moves from the basic spear throw to the special attacks are smooth and effective, the game looks just as good on a TV or on the move and I experienced no lag – a perk to a 2D side scrolling game.
Gameplay is simple, you stand still and throw your spear at oncoming waves of enemies which progressively get harder. If they reach you, they kill you.
The game plays out like a cross between angry birds and a wave based shooter, it has you killing zombies and giants at the beginning and quickly escalates to armoured units, flying units and super annoying fish! Not to mention awesome bosses with the classic weak spot style defeat system.
The controls are just as good on the move as they are on a TV with no lag, screen tear or other performance issues which makes the game a breeze. I preferred to use RZ as the primary spear throwing button – you hold down to aim further away and use the analog stick to aim up and down. My personal favourite was playing with the Pro Controller for a nice and accurate movement.
Each level itself is split into 5 stages which get harder as you go and reach their peak at the boss – luckily progress is saved up to the levels stage so you can pick up where you left off if you, like me get annoyed and have to blow off some steam then come back and finish the level every now and then.
Your trusty lichtspeer is your sole weapon but you get a range of abilities and 3 slots which correspond to a button on your controls, each slot has around 4 different skills and each skill can be levelled up using your cash which you get from killing mobs.
The addictive aim here is to string together headshots, as you start to get good at it the game just gets harder – you may now start on the right and need to shoot left or you may be in the middle and need to shoot both ways.
For a simple game they put in a lot of content here to keep it as interesting as possible for a linear, close to zero story game.
The Double Speed Edition on the Switch brings two new modes – game+, a chance to redo and improve your first completion and rage quite mode if your crazy enough to increase the difficulty!
Co-op mode is also introduced and I am pleased to say it plays out well on a single joy-con each, your companion plays as your trusted licht hound buddy and helps you slay the fiends – they even get a special move which plays out nicely.
The additional touches on the switch and the low price point make this game excellent in terms of value, for a game that comes in at less than the cost of a cinema trip these days you are getting your moneys worth.
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