I was on a journey. After about an hour of playing Minishoot’ Adventures, I was ready to call this straightforward mix of 2D shmup and 2D Zelda mediocre. I changed my mind long before I beat the final boss and at that point I thought it was good, but I still felt like all the people who praised it at the end of 2024 were only singing so loudly because it was good, low and vague, three things , which when combined can easily be confused with size.
Then I pushed past the final boss, clearing the rest of the map, and in that last 25% I think I fell in love. The concept of Minishoot’ Adventures is straightforward, but its execution is a masterpiece of craftsmanship.
Or maybe it should just be “craft.” In Minishoot’ Adventures you control a tiny hovercraft which, from the surprising apostrophe in the title (why not “Minishoot’s”?), I assume is called Minishoot. There is very little text in the game to explain its history, but it appears to be a universe populated by similar sentient ships, with no humans in sight. As you get closer, you encounter genial ships that communicate with you through chirps, spins, and sweats, and come to your headquarters to assist you, and enemy ships that want to shoot you. You don’t want to get shot, so you dodge their bullets and return fire.
Let’s start with my doubts. Minishoot’ Adventures is a Metroidvania and at the beginning your world map is mostly empty. You can explore the starting area, which itself contains many caves and dungeons that you can go to, but also go beyond the boundaries of the map into several adjacent zones. As a result, after an hour I was completely overwhelmed.
I didn’t know where to go. When I died in combat, I didn’t know if I should persevere or if I was just not level enough for the area and should come back later. I also didn’t know where to find the shards that would later fill my map. I couldn’t find out which caves I had already been to and which ones I hadn’t, because they often look similar from the outside. The map in the lower left corner would sometimes flash and I didn’t know what it meant because, as a mostly wordless game, there are very few tutorials.
Some other players may revel in these kinds of mysteries, but I’m not other players. I am me and it was stressful and frustrating for me. Minishoot’ Adventures isn’t an information game that teases you with glimmers of potential, and when answers do emerge, they don’t come as a result of your own research or experimentation, but on a plate as unlocked skills and characters. This is normal for a Metroidvania game, but I feel like other games in this genre – especially Hollow Knight or Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown – do a better job of signaling to the player: not here, not yet.
Ultimately, that moment where I felt lost in the game’s design was short-lived, and I persevered because even in the midst of anxiety, the core joys remained. Zooming is the ultimate joy in Minishoot, and “zoom” seems to be the right verb to describe the combination of exhilarating momentum and direct control. It’s more Geometry Wars than Galak-Z, but there’s still some mastery to be had with boost moves and dashes.
Shooting is also straightforward fun. Your starting weapon is a rapid-firing, single-shot machine gun, and the clang and crack of enemies being dispatched is incredibly satisfying. Collect enough crystals dropped by enemies and you’ll level up, earning a point you can invest to make your weapons stronger, your bullets fly faster and further, your ship faster, and more. You’ll also earn gems by fighting larger enemies, which can be spent on upgrading your weapon, turning that single-shot machine gun into a multi-shot attack that rips through early enemies.
Once I found my footing in the game – even though the game technically has no legs and may be completely limbless – a steady rhythm formed. I delved deeper into the cave, each one a straightforward Zelda-style dungeon, and won a series of fights to reach the buttons and keys that allowed me to progress further in the dungeon. Eventually, at the end of the dungeon, I discovered a fresh ability, such as slowing down time, launching a bomb, or flying over water. These abilities will liven up the combat even more and allow me to progress further in the world by reaching fresh areas that contain their own dungeons. Rinse and repeat.
By the time I beat the final boss after about nine hours of Minishoot’ Adventures, I was satisfied. There’s a generosity to this game, a sense that it wants you to have fun and isn’t terribly interested in getting in your way. To be clear, this isn’t completely frictionless, but take for example the ability to downgrade your skills and have your points refunded at any time. There were many fights, including boss fights, in which I failed five or six times, but progress could often be made by changing my upgrades to favor damage over speed or other abilities.
The only surprise I had with this game was that I didn’t find it very intriguing. There’s nothing technically original about Minishoot’ Adventures; it’s a derivative of a mashup of two established genres that, after meeting, discover nothing fresh about each other. Honestly, it’s tough to write an engaging review about this game while avoiding stereotypes.
However, once I beat the final boss, I didn’t want to stop. Minishoot’ Adventures is so much fun to play that I continued exploring by going to no longer explored map markers to immaculate up. I think I fell in love with this last series as I picked up the remaining skills, collectibles, and story arcs one by one in quick succession. I never played it 100%, but I did and still played Minishoot’ Adventures. I was melancholy too when it really ended.
So let’s not overcomplicate this. Minishoot’ Adventures is a seemingly straightforward game, but its simplicity is deceitful. As I played, a stupid question arose: Given its conceptual obviousness and straightforward pleasures, why aren’t there more games as good as this? It’s a stupid question because it has an obvious answer: because it’s incredibly tough to make a good game, and because what seems straightforward in retrospect is almost never made. Minishoot’ Adventures may not be a “great” game, but you can certainly have a good time playing it, and that’s enough.
