PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate is a combination of the first two PixelJunk Shooter games with a graphics upgrade and some other minor tweaks. It was released for the PS4 and (surprisingly) Vita, being cross-buy, cross-save and cross-play, which is pretty awesome. This is a twin stick shooter game but don't confuse it with the arcade shoot em ups, no, PixelJunk Shooter is more strategic and requires some thought. I found myself strangely addicted to the game after the first level and kept thinking when I could play it again. You play as a ship that sets out to a planet to save stranded scientists.
Obviously, these scientists are vulnerable and can die from external factors such as magma, enemy fire or you own ship's weapons. It incorporates puzzle elements in reaching these scientists and this is by far the most interesting mechanic of the game. They aren't super difficult at first but the difficulty will raise gradually as you go through the levels. In the later levels, you will need to plan a few steps ahead, anticipating what is going to happen. For example, you might have to blast a tunnel to channel the magma away first and then head in to save the scientists.
The water and magma animations are perfect, they behave like you would expect and it's apparent that a large amount of effort went into the water physics. The animation is fluid, coupled with the crisp aesthetic of the game and you will enjoy just watching the water slosh around. As will nearly all games these days, there are collectibles to be had. The main attraction here is diamonds which are hidden throughout the levels. Most of them are easy to find but a few are quite difficult to locate.
I was surprised that you could only aim in eight directions, which seemed at odds with what you would expect. This drastically reduces accuracy and will take a short while to get used to. You will need to aim carefully and this makes the game feel somewhat clunky. The other game play twist is that there are "suits" in some levels that will alter your ship's abilities. For example, you may get the magma suit which allows you to fire magma or the water suit which (you guessed it) allows you to spew water. It makes the game much more interesting and fun to play.
Probably my lease favourite part of the game would be the boss battles. It's not that they are not done well but they are dragged on for so long and the fact that there are no checkpointing makes it a huge pain to play. The bosses themselves are not easy, from the first boss, you will die multiple times. As is typical, each boss has various phases which kick in once they've reached a certain amount of HP. Their attack patterns changes and you gotta adapt. Frustratingly, if you end up dying at any time, you have to repeat the whole boss battle again. Considering that it takes a decent amount of time to get to those stages, it's extremely annoying to say the least.
This is further aggravated by cheap mechanics such as the second boss shooting one hit KO mini monsters at you. The fact that you can only aim in eight directions doesn't help either. All of this combines to a frustrating experience that artificially extends the game time. I'm not saying make the game super easy but at least give us a choice in whether we want a decent challenge or just want to enjoy the game at a relaxing pace. The bosses themselves feel overly long, taking a while to chip down it's HP.
There are 30 levels in total, with a boss at every five stages. It takes anywhere from 10 mins to 1 hour to complete a level so you are getting a decent amount of play time. To be honest, I found that from around the fifteenth level onwards, things started to go downhill as the level designs were more annoying than clever or fun. There will be timed levels or irreversible actions that you would have done meaning you can't take your time to explore and think about how to proceed. Sure, you can restart that section but it gets very annoying. By this point, the checkpoint system sucks as there are cheap instant kill deaths and if you end up getting surprised and dying near the end of that section, well, prepare to do the whole thing again. It's frustrating and sickening.
There is a story. You play as the pilot of a spaceship who is sent to an alien planet to save scientists. They were on the planet to explore and mine resources but ended up being stranded when the planet attacked back. You gain an idea of what the background is from the tidbits from special scientists you save and it makes the story more interesting than you would expect. Sadly, the ending is ambiguous and not very satisfying. Overall, PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate is a fun game where at times it can be challenging and frustrating. Considering that it is the first two games combined into one, it presents great value and even has a multiplayer mode (granted, the servers aren't the best). Despite my complaints, I have enjoyed the game and have no regrets.
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