S. Prysm Destroyer (Nintendo Switch) Review

S.Prysm Destroyer has two major issues, the first universal, the second, as far as this reviewer knows, native to Nintendo Switch. The first one is that, as a game, it's one of the most… ok there are out there. There's nothing particularly bad about it, but nothing good either. The player is in control of a mecha; the mecha goes from left to right and shoots at a variety of mechanical stuff; it gathers simple, temporary weapon boosts; it jumps and hovers in the air for a bit… aaand that's about it.

The timeless classic by the name of Contra could have the exact same description as above. Soldier goes from left to right, blasting stuff with his guns - but in practice they aren't really the same. There's nothing here that feels fun. It's a bit too simple, too easy, too lifeless. There's none of Contra's feeling of tension, its variety, and none of its ultra-fine-tuned controls either. Is it bad? No, it all works as intended, it's just that there's nothing special about it.

The only semblance of enjoyment one can have here is by trying to reach the best score as fast as possible, but again, the mechanics at hand don't really give one the incentive to keep trying to reach the highest position in the Leaderboards. The only thing that's left to do is to complete a variety of challenges to unlock costumes for your pilot, aka, the small icon in the HUD that most will soon forget that it exists…

So, this is a mediocre, uninspired, repetitive shooter. That's the first flaw. The second one, as mentioned before, is native to the Switch version, and at least in the case of this reviewer, was the most irritating aspect. What's that? Well, jumping and shooting is tied to Y and A, instead of Y and B, or any other combination of keys that are next to each other like it has always been the norm. Is there a way to change the controls? Nope. Deal with it!