One of the things that makes enjoying indie games easier is their tendency to defy expectations and find ways to deliver new experiences. While that may not always equate to games that deliver in terms of mainstream success, there can always be audiences that get excited by play that’s new and different, even if not executed perfectly. That’s where I landed on Go Mecha Ball, an action game that pretty well stands alone by mixing together elements of twin-stick shooting and pretty intense combat, but then throws in roguelike elements as well to deliver something unique.

The main thing you’ll need to come to grips with quickly is how and when your best option is to shoot at your enemies, and when you should ball up and attempt to ram into them. While shooting is obviously the easier option, ammo scarcity will force you to get up close and personal with enemies with great regularity. Aside from the fact that your ball attack can be effective for chipping away damage, it’s also your means of trying to scare up more ammo. Especially when you’re in small crowds of enemies this tends to make the action quite chaotic, but that’s also really when the game tends to be firing on all cylinders so it’s best to simply embrace the madness.

Where the game stumbles a bit, and this is tied to that chaos, is with the design of its stages you see from an isometric view. Riddled with boosts and ramps, it can sometimes be tough to keep track of what’s going on as you get bounced around and generally abused. With time you do get more used to how best to deal with this problem, sometimes simply by trying to avoid specific problematic areas, but the isometric view’s interference with being able to quickly and easily understand the layout of the stage as you’re fighting against your enemies can be a bummer at times.