A roguelite shooter built on Overwatch abilities - Battle Shapers Quick First Impressions

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PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

This one’s definitely worth checking out if you’re at all into hero shooters or roguelikes, or if the notion of an Overwatch-inspired spin on Mothergunship sounds exciting. The Battle Shapers demo offers access to one of the game’s three potential boss objectives, and it’s shaping up nicely—even if it gets a little repetitive after a while.

TIME PLAYED

I’ve played about two hours of the Battle Shapers demo so far, during which time I’ve made eight attempts to defeat the Volt Colossus. They’ve all ended in failure so far, but each run yielded resources that allowed me to boost protagonist Ada’s capabilities, giving her more life, better shields, and new abilities to take into the next run.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• Promising combat. Ada has a cool arrangement of weapons that I could find in each run, and I gradually unlocked more as I gathered currency. There are standard weapon types like repeating pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles, but all of them have varying levels and traits. Since I could only carry two at a time, I was constantly swapping them out for new, better guns I encountered, and the shooting combined with Ada’s devastating punch felt great. The abilities were terrific when I remembered to use them: There’s an energy shield that reflects projectiles back toward enemies, and a crystal wall structure I could use to block enemy movement or do direct damage, like a more aggressive version of Mei’s ice wall in Overwatch.

• Bite-sized runs. Battle Shapers is a perfect midday snack of a game: It’s quick to fire up and knock out a run or two in fifteen to twenty-five minutes each. Since I earned currency for future unlocks on every run I made, regardless of how successful I was, I never felt like I was wasting my time.

• Space for mastery. While Battle Shapers feels quick and breezy to jump into for the first time, the skill ceiling is high enough that I could see exactly where it would be helpful to practice and master some of the abilities and weapon mechanics. Ada’s shield only flashes up for a second, so it’s crucial to time it just as enemy projectiles are about to cross its threshold—and when I pulled that off, it felt awesome. I still whiff that one a lot, but I have a feeling once I get it down, I’ll finally be able to defeat the Volt Colossus.

• Cool permanent upgrades. Collecting currency during runs let me add new abilities and buffs to Ada, and the list has some pretty tantalizing stuff on it. There’s a needler weapon, boosts for her health and armor, and entire new abilities for the cores she equips before each run.

• Punching robots in the face. Any game that lets me do this gets extra points. That’s just the rules.

WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

• Lack of run variety. Granted, this is just the demo, but so far every one of my Battle Shapers runs has felt more or less like the last. There’s a pretty rigid format, and while I’m sure that will open up when I find more upgrades for Ada, the time I played left me wishing I’d seen a bit more in terms of room types and enemy variety.

• Lackluster jumping puzzles. Between combat arenas I often encountered jumping puzzles I had to complete in order to move forward. These all involved hopping on a jump pad or a series of timed platforms, sometimes with an environmental hazard thrown in for good measure. I didn’t find these interesting—they interrupted the fun robot-shooting I was doing and replaced it with some light frustration.

• Dull loot. I found lots of little treasure boxes scattered throughout each run, and each one glowed with a rarity color to indicate how awesome it was. The thing is, they almost always contained a handful of currency or a shield boost, and so I quickly stopped feeling excited to open one. Occasionally I found something worthwhile, like an ability enhancement module, but most of the time it’s just another bunch of gems or shields.

💬 Will you be joining Ada in her fight to reconquer the city from the evil AI overlords, or are you going to skip this roguelite shooter? Let me know what you think in the comments!