Whisker Squadron: Survivor does a barrel roll with Star Fox and survivor-likes smashed together - out now

After a while in Early Access, Whisker Squadron: Survivor has launched that attempts to blend together the on-rails shooting from Star Fox with a few elements of the bullet heaven survivor-likes popularised by Vampire Survivors. Note: key provided for me.

Unlike a traditional on-rails shooter this is based on you completing randomised 30 minute runs, with everything changing each time you go through as you take on what's known as The Swarm. For those unaware, on-rails basically means you never stop, everything moves with you, so it’s like you're on rails. Get it? Here you destroy enemies, and collect their scrap to level up and unlock abilities as you go through a run.

With the full release now available they've added in a full 3 act campaign mode with a final mission, voiced characters, a finished more in-depth story along with new upgrade items.

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The visual style is impeccable. I really do love the vibrant artwork on it, all fitting with the theme so perfectly. When you're in some of the tougher battles with lots of enemies, it really looks spectacular. The action as well is great overall, especially once you get part way through a run with the mixture of enemy types, there’s plenty to keep you on your toes and to ensure the game grabs your attention. Enemies all have different attacks too. So with the randomness you never do entirely know what to expect from it. Especially intense when you have enemies firing lasers directly at you, another setting off a circular disc area attack and others firing beams across the whole area. It can be a little crazy at times.

There's a lot of replay value here too, since it's a survivor-like game with randomisation in enemies, upgrades and what you'll face in it.

I think given people's love of Star Fox, it was always going to be tough for them to hit the mark with this one. The movement especially has to be pretty-much perfect. The developer has received a fair bit of negative feedback on that, since they removed the "Tilt" ability allowing you to more finely tune where your ship was pointing. There's been a lot of complaints on its removal but it could possibly return sometime.

For me though, I think it all feels pretty good. Accessible with the basic movement around the screen, then there's your roll to parry enemy bullets and also a little side-swipe barrel roll too. Together they feel like it does enough right on movement to make it feel good while also remaining a challenge.

Some parts I wasn't a fan of though.

When you finish each level you pick a node from a map. You probably know this feature well by now from many different games and genres. Each node has something potentially different from new enemies to rewards. The map for each section is quite small though.

Here’s where some odd design comes in. Some nodes contain Cursed Choices that are forced on you. Pick one and get a buff, but also an (at times maddening) debuff like one hit death or get stunned every time you’re hit. For a game that’s pretty streamlined, it’s a bit punishing. Annoyingly so, because the progression in it is so god damn slow. You have to play a lot of runs to get even some of the basic extras in it and the permanent upgrades are even worse at how slow they are to unlock.

Another annoyance is that you also have to go through a whole entire run. You can’t save and quit during it. That may work for some types of games, but in my opinion, not this one. Picking a node on the map is literally the perfect time to let people save and come back, I don't get why this wasn't added.

Personally as well I found the characters distracting and a little annoying for this. I just wanted to blast through a chaotic Star Foxy take on the survivor genre. I think they should have left the story side for their other in-development Whisker Squadron game where it would have been a better fit.

At its core it’s a pretty fun on-rails shooter that blends in rogue-lite progression with survivor-like features, but with a few odd design choices and one that really could have benefited from more player choice and more rewarding progression to create chaos as you fly through it. Tough to really give it a final thought, I'm a bit torn on it overall.