When I typically think of Metroidvanias I’ve been conditioned a bit to the point that I assume the balance is usually more on the Castlevania influences in terms of style of play. I’m not sure why but slashing and/or more ground-based attacks just seem to be the norm, so it feels a bit refreshing to see titles geared more to Metroid-esque shooting instead. Blast Brigade, as I’ll call it here (I just don’t have the energy to type the rest of it again), just feels determined to stand alone as its own experience, and I can respect that. It’s characters and dialogue trend towards the silly, its limited upgrade system will make you carefully consider which ones you’ll enable for general exploration versus taking on bosses, and more often than not it feels like you’ll face your most formidable foes at a slight disadvantage, so be prepared to suck it up and tough it out as you get the specifics of their attack patterns down. This, of course, delivers some terrific highs when you manage to overcome some tough battles, but it may mean that this ride is a bit too tough if your gamer skills don’t get quite high enough on the skill chart. Thankfully for me it always felt like I was on the edge of potential success rather than getting completely blown out so it made it very compelling to return. About my only quasi complaint is that I had a hard time getting comfortable with my button layout, and opted to edit my setup rather than use either of the 2 provided options. The challenge was the need to accurately aim with the right stick while also needing to jump, making the default configuration problematic. Moving it to the left Z-trigger helped greatly but unfortunately I decided to do this after already getting used to the controls so it took some time to get used to again. Just wanted to share that as a thought, but overall this is a quality game that feels refreshingly unique in the Switch library.