Curved Space

Curved Space is a fun modern take on the twin stick shooter genre but doesn’t offer many new advances that players might expect in this day and age of video games.

A fantastic looking game with a banging soundtrack, but not one that will keep you occupied for too long. Gameplay is far from bad, but it's not up to the same standard as the graphics and audio sadly. Curved Space is a slickly presented but sadly average title.

Curved Space isn't quite what I thought it would be when it comes to twin-stick shooters, but that's not saying it's bad by any means. The concepts are interesting, flying around and shooting down enemies while on planets that can loop themselves inside-out. However the boss fights can be downright tedious and it's not fun getting bounced around all over the place when getting shot and hit by enemies. The Survival Mode is where I spent most of my time as it felt the closest to a twin-stick arcade-like experience. If you like space shooters you might want to give Curved Space a shot. But for those wanting a more traditional twin-stick shooter experience, you might be a bit disappointed.

If your idea of fun is flicking your boogers on the wall to see which ones stick, you probably won't enjoy Curved Space. However, those who simply want some old-school action in a roguelike setup will surely appreciate what it has to offer.

Taking familiar gameplay and changing things up to take some risks has always been a core component of my love for indie titles...

Curved Space is described as arcade-style anyways, so I don’t understand why the devs thought the story was needed at all. If they focused on polishing a mode that players can have some mindless fun, Curved Space could be leaps and bounds better. There’s a reason why rogue-lites have been finding so much success in the indie sphere: gameplay-first designs that just feel nice to play.

The game has many new viewpoints and camera movement compared to any other conventional video games. While it’s cool, it also serves as a health risk to some. While the idea is fresh off the imagination, considerations may be lost due to the fun and excitement of creativity. While some of the dialogues seem a bit ‘last second’, they fail to deliver the sincerity as it was difficult to feel any emotions from the characters. While I understand the intentions of putting life into new ideas and creations, all the energy from the excitement of the development may transition into exhaustion from the players.

Curved Space tries new things in the twin-stick genre. I appreciate the attempt, but most of those new things don’t work out. Playing it is often uncomfortable, and too many of its weapons are duds. At times the fast-paced shooting can be enjoyable, but even that is too often broken up by pacing issues. I’m all for destroying spiders, but I’d rather do so without feeling sick to my stomach.

As it stands, Curved Space is a pretty good arcade shooter that manages to stand out even though it suffers from an annoying amount of feature creep.

All in all, I came away impressed with this game, will it make me a convert to ‘bullet hell’ types? No, but it will be a nice change of pace between some of my other games. If you are just looking for some frantic, twin stick action that will test your reflexes as well as your resolve then look no further than the beautiful landscapes and twisty levels of Curved Space.