When it comes to side-scrolling arcade shooters, whether retro or modern, the Switch has definitely got your hook up. Of course, what’s great for gamers isn’t necessarily the ideal situation for developers trying to get their shot at some success, especially when they’re not well-known or working on a sequel to an existing big hit. A number of months ago I got to play the pretty wild Söldner-X: Himmelsstürmer, and walked away at least moderately impressed. Now, with this follow-up, it feels like the developers managed to take what worked well and boosted it further, making for an experience that plays well and looks pretty great to boot.

The special sauce here, though it does take a little getting used to, is the fact that your ships in these games have some pretty wild firepower at their disposal. That isn’t to say that you’ll need to lock in with one specific style of fire, or that you’ll need to carefully manage what you’re picking up in order to avoid accidentally switching to something you don’t like. In this case you’re in control of the shift between what are typically pretty wildly different attacks, and that opens up a fair amount of strategy and fun that feels refreshing. Initially it can sometimes be easy to get sucked into the moment, determined to figure out how to grit a specific wave of attacks off with what you’ve got going, the same way you’ve done for years, but in this case you have options, and that’s terrific.

In terms of what works a little less effectively, in a total turn from my normal thoughts, I’d say that the very intrusive help that continues to pop up while you’re trying to take care of business is a mistake. I appreciate the goal of making people informed in the moment, enabling them to take in relevant information to help them better understand what’s going on, but it doesn’t work as well as intended. The first problem is that it feels like they’re trying to do too much, adding a few too many layers to the experience rather than just focusing on the fun and the challenge. Maybe save the higher-order ideas for more advanced modes you can unlock, freeing up the initial runs people have to be more focused on the action and learning the ropes? Giving people a heads up about the controls and elements like that is vital, but taking time to explain score multipliers and the rest feels more peripheral, and interrupting the action to share it just feels like a misstep in what’s otherwise a pretty sweet shooting package.