Product Info

Platform

Switch, PC

Publisher

2Awesome Studio

Developer

2Awesome Studio

Genre

Shoot-'em-up

Players

1-2

File Size (Minimum)

418MB

Release Date (NA)

Dec 7, 2017

Purchase From

eShop

Steam

Dimension Drive is not your average space shoot-‘em-up, arcade-style game. It’s a fresh take that uses teleportation to take down enemies, but the game’s difficulty will make you second guess if you are good enough to play.

Fly, Space Girl

Meet Jackelyne Tywood (a.k.a Jack), the heroine of the game. Her homeland was destroyed by an aggressive, alien race known as the Ashajuls. Jack was found by a peaceful alien race and was raised by them. Years later, Jack has grown into a top pilot on her new home planet.

The Ashajuls, aiming for total domination across the universe, have discovered a unique technology called the “Dimension Drive”. This allows them to start a war to conquer all the infinite dimensions of the universe and make war last forever.

The Ashajuls have arrived to take over Jack’s new home. This time, Jack was prepared as she now has a unique spacecraft that also uses the Dimension Drive. From here on out, the storyline is predictable: seeking revenge and preventing the war-hungry Ashajuls from taking over the universes.

While the story is intriguing at first, the dialogue between battles begins to fall flat, and you’ll find yourself more focused on how to prepare for the battlefield than what is happening with the story.

Enter the Next Dimension

The biggest feature Dimension Drive has that a lot of shoot-‘em-up games don’t have is utilizing advanced tactics and solving puzzles to win battles. In battle, the screen is split into two views. Normally, you would see this layout for co-op gameplay. However, the two screens are set up for you to teleport back-and-forth to attack enemies, fly around obstacles, and collect special items that can help boost your ships performance. The game makes it easier to spot your teleportation location by showing a glowing, pink dot on the other side of the screen. This setup gives you more useful ways to carefully plan your next move.

The idea for using a split screen to teleport between screens is actually one of the freshest ideas in the genre and that uniqueness is reminiscent of another game, Ikaruga. In that title, players have the power to change their ship’s shield color to match the color of the enemy’s bullets and prevent damage. It’s a simple concept like the one in Dimension Drive, but it makes makes the game stand out. But novel gameplay features aren’t the only thing the two games have in common; they’re also insanely difficult.

WTF Mode

There are four difficulties to the game: Normal, Hard, Extreme and WTF. Normal is the best start to get used to the controls and gameplay, but as you turn up the notch in difficulty, be prepared to get blown apart.

The more difficult level you play, the less mercy there is. You have no shields and receiving one hit from enemies will kill you instantly. With the battlefield filled with enemies flying around, bullets spraying all over the screen, and jumping between two different battlefields, the game is not for the faint-hearted.

While having harder difficulties is great for replay value, the normal mode isn’t much easier. Yes, this mode will give you shields to take on more enemy attacks, but with obstacles blending into the background, you can easily perish from flying into one. Not even shields will help you from making a mistake with the battlefield. Theoretically, you should be able to tell the depth of the battlefield, but there is a disconnect in the design so obstacles are not easily identified as something you should, for example, fly over or fly around.

Energy is Everything

If worrying about enemy attacks and obstacles isn’t enough, you also have to be concerned about your ship’s energy. Each side of the screen has an energy gauge that powers the ship’s attacks. However, the energy is limited. You can gain energy by collecting green “gems” that enemies drop when defeated, but once you run out, you have no choice but to teleport to the other side of the screen to let the energy regenerate.

The limitation puts the player in a position to carefully use the ship’s energy and come up with tactics to beat the level. While this adds more ways to play, it also makes it incredibly challenging.

Control Your Ship to Perfection

The control setup for your ship is straightforward and simple. Each button does something unique such as teleporting, reverse flying, and shooting. All it takes is a press of a button to achieve the action. With everything happening on the screen, the control setup should be the last thing on your mind when taking down enemies. To this end, the creators succeeded.

Flying with Style

The game’s comic book style illustrations give the game a sleek and detailed look and feel that is not often seen. Strangely, that visual style does not extend to the 3D clip in the opening of the game, and even though it’s functional with regard to the story, it is a bit confusing as to why it was done that way.

Overall

Dimension Drive is a pawesome shoot ‘em up that gives you plenty to test your teleportation and shooting tactics. However, the game’s brutal difficulty and its obstacles blending into the background make the game frustrating to play.

A Nintendo Switch review code was provided by2Awesome Studio for this review.