The words “twin-stick shooter” have become far too common a descriptor for games these days and it feels, at times, like the gamut of possibilities for what types of things you can shoot using two joysticks on a controller has now reached its exhaustive conclusion. Then you play a game like Assault Android Cactus and remember why these games are fun, where they came from, and why the best shooters are about more than just shooting.
The underlying mechanics to Assault Android Cactus blend together ideas from classic shooters, like Smash TV and Ikari Warriors, with the controls and gameplay of more modern ones. Each of the 20 regular levels - there are five boss levels that are different - will pit you against a set number of foes that you must defeat while the entire stage shifts around you. Sections will drop away to be replaced with something else, or new bits of cover will appear while others disappear. It’s a neat trick that makes every level feel different. It’s not just swapping tiles/backgrounds and substituting a few enemies here and there, every level plays differently and that leads to some interesting tactics that can emerge depending on which android you select. Amidst all of that chaos, enemies also drop orbs that charge up your primary weapon so it does more damage and/or has a greater area of effect, and power-ups that either briefly freeze all enemies, boost your speed, or give you some helper bots that fire alongside you. Both are key to actually clearing a stage as you’re fighting more than just robotic foes.
Each level must be cleared within a certain “time limit.” I use the quotes in this case as there is no ticking clock on the screen slowly beating away to your doom, but rather a green battery indicator that drains at a set rate. Should that battery become fully depleted, you lose. Fortunately, battery charges will drop from certain enemies (or in-between the different phases of a boss fight) to keep you going. This battery is completely separate from your android’s life bar. Should you get hit so many times and your life gets depleted, you will hop right back into the action after a couple seconds.
Once all the foes of a stage has been cleared, you’ll get a score, some credits that can be used to buy in-game artwork and special modes, and the option of moving on to the next level. All of this happens within, at most, the span of about four minutes and it’s all perfectly paced. The level lasts just long enough that you’ll occasionally have those little moments of triumph where you just made it, and doesn’t outstay its welcome.
Assault Android Cactus is definitely fun to play, the most striking aspect of the game, to me, is its charm. Each of the nine playable characters - four initially and then five more that you unlock by playing through the campaign - are voiced and you’re able to get a good sense of their personalities within just a few lines of dialogue. At times, these characters may fall into a few clear anime/cartoon stereotypes, i.e., there’s the “crazy” android, the tough/no-nonsense one, the nervous one, but it’s never to the degree of being too over the top or strained. I smirked and chuckled at a few lines here and there, and was pleasantly surprised to see that each boss reacts differently to each android; it was enough to make me replay those encounters with a different character just to see the conversation.
Aside from the unique personalities, each android also has her own particular loadout of weapons. Every character has a primary weapon and a secondary weapon, which is restricted in its number of uses due to a heating mechanic wherein it has to cool down after being fired before being used again. These weapons vary from the straight-forward, i.e., an assault rifle, a shotgun, or a laser beam, to the rather inventive, such as spinning helper robot that flies away from your android based on how hard you press the fire button. I mentioned earlier that the way the stages shift as you play leads to some different tactics depending on which android you select, and this is where the second part of that equation comes into play.
For example, one stage has an open pit in the middle from which enemies crawl out, with some smaller pits opening/closing around the edges. While playing as Scratch with her laser beam and seeker missile secondary, I blazed through the level without having to worry too much about positioning. When I switched to Peanut, who uses a gun that shoots out magma in a limited range for her primary and a drill that shoots her forward and damages whatever she hits as a secondary, I had to move around more. This meant I was forced to deal with the pits and enemies that, previously, I wasn’t aware even existed. In another instance, I was struggling for a while against a particular boss using Lemon, who has a spread shot primary and shoots missiles as her secondary. During one phase of the fight, I could not do enough damage to the boss in time to trigger the next phase (and thereby, a battery drop so the battery could be recharged). Part of this was no doubt due to my own skill, but when I switched to Coral and got close to the boss to maximize the effect of her shotgun, I got through the encounter without issue.
Those tactics extend, to some degree, to the co-op play. More than “just having another gun” by your side, adding friends to the game add new tactics to your game thanks to the different loadouts of each android. Pairing an android like Shiitake, who has a slow rate of fire but a high damage output, with the faster Cactus helps you compensate for the weaknesses of each while fully utilizing their strengths. You will need every advantage you can get, too, as things get a little more difficult the more players that are added.
New enemy spawns and more enemy waves make a once familiar level a little tougher to get through. Outside of sharing in the glory of beating a level, there isn’t much else that’s shared. Charging up your gun is a solo affair, and power-ups (excluding the one that freezes all foes) only directly benefit the android that picks it up; however, those kinds of short-term boosts are beneficial to the team as a whole so it usually matters more that somebody got it and put it to use. If one of your friends goes down in a hail of fire, they’re responsible for getting themselves back into the fight. It’s a little disappointing that you’re unable to interact with your partner in more ways, but that doesn’t exactly put a damper on the fun, either.
After playing countless variations of twin-stick shooters over the past few years (all of which usually involved zombies), I was definitely feeling burnt out. Within moments of playing Assault Android Cactus, though, I was feeling a little rejuvenated. Here was a game that reminded me of playing arcade shooters. The different character loadouts, the power-ups, and the short, focused stages are all hallmarks, to me, of the games I played in my youth and which, to some degree, feel lost in the shuffle of making the next zombie shooter. Add to all of that a cast of characters that are just that right bit of amusing and you’ve got a game that exceeds the reductive phrase of “just another twin-stick shooter.”