Twin-stick shooter Blazing Beaks from Applava and QubicGames heavy on the birds and the action. Learn more about it in our Blazing Beaks review!

 

In Blazing Beaks, you will take control of a character of the “it’s a bird” variety. Right from the start, you can select from five different characters, with more left to unlock. There’s a duck, a platypus, a bluebird, a chicken, and a parrot for you select as the hero you’ll be controlling for this adventure. Each character has a different weapon, as well as different abilities and hindrances to consider that make each one feel, well, different! Take, for example, the duck. If you don’t shot for a second your weapon will reload three times faster for the next shot, which will certainly come in handy when you’re surrounded by enemies, but it also has a 50% lower weapon range, so you’ll need to get a bit closer to enemies to deal some damage. Characters also have different total hit point counts, so do keep that in mind!

This being a twin-stick style release, you will move around with the left analog stick and aim with the right analog stick. You can fire with the ZR button, and can interact with things with the A button – mostly to pick up any collectibles you get from the enemies you have defeated. If you want to use an ability, then you can do so by pressing the ZL button. That’s all there is to say about the game’s controller layout, and I do have to say that simple and to the point is great for this rather hectic game!

You’ll find yourself in room after room with enemies to kill, items to loot from them, and coins to collect. If you want to progress to the next room, you’ll first need to defeat all enemies. If you see a room with a key on top of it, that means you’ll be needing a key to open the way – perhaps you’d like to start your run with a character which already starts with a key? There are also going to be boss doors that, as the name suggests, will lead the way to a boss fight. You’ll need to pay attention to their movement and attacks patterns if you want to survive because they deal considerable damage and can destroy you in a blink.

Speaking of that, there are plenty of enemies to kill, more than enough bosses to challenge you, and plenty of stuff to find in this procedurally generated action-packed game! There are 32 enemies to find and destroy, six deadly bosses that will test your skills, 71 items to obtain, 57 artefacts to collect, nine abilities, and 47 weapons. Add those up and, yeah, that’s a lot of stuff! The things you collect can be traded with what seems to be a rather large black crow to get money and other stuff to help you on your adventure. You can also use the coins you collect to purchase new weapons for your run, such as a very handy chain-lighting spewing gun that fires one shot at a time and takes a second and change to reload, but that one shot makes a huge difference when several enemies are close by!

No two runs will be the same, and you’ll learn a lot as you play this one and make some mistakes here and there. For example, since you have a relatively small hit point count, you would probably be inclined to think that everything in the game will deal one point of damage to you. Seems like sound logic, right? Well, you’ll probably be proved wrong with a “one hit death” when you suddenly realize that the bigger enemies can hit you for two points of damage, which is indeed lethal when you only have two hit points left! There are also other hazards you need to avoid, such as the toxic waste left behind by some enemies, which will indeed damage your character.

Blazing Beaks is a fun roguelike 2D twin-stick arcade-style shooter on Nintendo Switch that you should check out. It has the gameplay mechanics that you know and love from twin-stick shooters and roguelikes, and it has a cast of birds as its playable characters. There is a bit of extra strategy involved in this one since the hazards that can damage you, the spikes that pop out of the floor, the toxic ooze that drips out of some of the enemies you defeat, or the exploding eggs dropped by some enemies, they all can and will damage your enemies as well, so one properly placed exploding egg can help you clear out a room in no time. You can take on this one on your own or dive into some multiplayer fun if you feel like it, which is always a nice bonus. Are you up for the challenge?

Disclaimer
This Blazing Beaks review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by QubicGames.