Review: Deep Space Rush (Nintendo Switch)

Deep Space Rush is an action-roguelite with randomly generated levels that have you running and gunning your way through traps and aliens as you attempt to help DeTeam stop a virus outbreak from infecting the ship’s inhabitants. As the difficulty starts to ramp up you will have to do everything you can to survive while pushing forward and discovering new, tougher enemies throughout your playthrough. With this comes some trial and error, as you are blown to smithereens and need to attempt another run. So, take your gathered-up coins and purchase upgrades to your weapons and health and try again.

Although the story is presented in the store pages and press briefings, the mentions in the actual game are slim to none. With that in mind, remember that the point of the game is in the run ‘n’ gun gameplay with quick jump-in and jump-out sequences. You won’t be discovering deep lore or some secret reason behind all of this, you are simply trying to get as far as possible while collecting coins and achieving a high score. This makes this title more akin to Metal Slug (without the boss fights) with Xeodrifter art and graphics; and honestly, I think Metal Slug has more of a story than Deep Space Rush. With that being said, the gameplay is enjoyable for a short while, but it begins very quickly to enter tedium.

Your jump is extremely frustrating, as it is super heavy — think Mega Man, but while holding some bricks. This made for a lot of resets due to jumping right onto spikes you thought you had cleared, as well as a lack of maneuverability when trying to avoid enemies.

Shooting is fine but doesn’t create any sort of new mechanic or exceptional traits. You can use various weapons that can be upgraded with your coins, but gaining that upgrade doesn’t actually give you the weapon. Instead, it just allows it to appear in the level with an extremely limited amount of ammo. Thus, it makes more sense to pump up your main pistol rather than the other weapons, just for efficiency’s sake. Upgrading your pistol just a couple of times makes it just as strong as most of the weapon drops, so having a maxed-out pistol instead allows you to focus on health and other upgrades. But the other weapons allow for a bit more variety, which might be something you throw a bone or two at in order to keep things fun.

Other upgrades include your health, as mentioned, as well as red and blue orb drops that also randomly appear in the level. The red orb gives you a speed and jump boost, which is helpful for just rushing past enemies but gets yourself in trouble more than it helps. The useful upgrade is the blue orb, which surrounds you in an electric field that kills enemies and makes you invulnerable for a short time. I found dumping my coins into the blue orb, health, and main pistol made the most sense, but being efficient also means the game is even more monotonous. Go crazy — discover some weapons too, for your own sake.

When you die on a run you restart from the beginning of a newly minted level, as each run randomly generates a new one for your pleasure. Level design is simple and sparse, so there isn’t much difference from one to the other, however. Coins are kept from life to life and allow you to get those upgrades going for deeper runs.

That about sums up all aspects of the game, with very little depth and a serious lack of variety. All in all, Deep Space Rush is a subpar experience, and examples of titles doing the same things better are literally in abundance on the eShop. Do yourself a favor and skip this one — you won’t regret it.