If you’re a fan of classic side-scrolling arcade shooting, the Switch is a system that has plenty of great options. That’s terrific news for genre fans, but rough news for developers still making more of them. Thankfully, within that more broad category there’s actually been quite a lot of differentiation in look, general play style, and overall feel though, so in some ways as long as you come to the table with a fresh approach there’s still room at the table to show well. While Söldner-X: Himmelsstürmer is a true mouthful of a title, it thankfully has the goods to make it worth looking up.

With regards to its visual style, the main thing I’d note is that I can’t think of any other title in the space that has the same general look. Now, that isn’t an endorsement saying it looks amazing, but I’ve absolutely seen titles that look far worse, and at least its visual quality helps it distinguish itself from titles with a more generic or lower-quality style. I think what strikes me as odd is that I’m not positive that visually all of the elements look like they belong together, with things like mines you’ll have to deal with just sort of looking out of place somehow. Regardless, you’ve also got elements like your ship’s beam weapon that looks really cool, like you’re shooting lightning of some sort, so the overall balance comes out positive.

Where it then shines further is that you’ll need to continue to size up the situation you’re in and move between your firing modes. Most of the time this is just between your pulse and beam weapons, but there are times where you’ll at least temporarily have something a little more powerful to work with as well. Your weapons will heat up as you use them, so you won’t have the option just to stick to one the whole time, and really moving back and forth makes sense since in different situations each of them will clearly give you an advantage. 

Pair that with a flow and elements in the various stages that just feel a bit different than the norm, and it’s generally a refreshing change of pace from the ordinary, even if it would be nice to see a little more overall refinement. In particular some sections where you’ll need to navigate through tighter spaces, including some that feel a little maze-like, don’t work out terribly well as it can be tough to tell where you’re able to go and in general you’re not left with much time to make a decision about how to navigate through. Elements like this aren’t crippling, but they do demonstrate areas that could absolutely use some improvement. This may just be coming out of nowhere, but it was a very pleasant surprise to spend some time with a title that seems determined to do things its own way, which I can respect.