Remember Pang Adventures? Well, it’s a bubble-popping game steeped in history. I remember playing the first iteration as a child called Buster Bros. and loved the gameplay. It was simple yet unbelievably intense. You basically went around popping bubbles but had to rely on precision and planning. Spheroids is clearly inspired by that game and brings that feeling to modern gaming.
Spheroids places you in the shoes of Lucas, a strange Canadian child who has to save the world by using weapons designed by an insane scientist named Otto. The plot is quite simple. Otto discovers that the Canadian government has been hiding the existence of alternative universes which contain spheres. The spherical beings invade Lucas’ voxel-based world—which looks like Fez—and you go from there. I think they want to make everything circular for some odd reason.
The game contains over thirty levels and they increase in difficulty the further you progress. Spheroids initially pits you against giant spheres you have to pop once. However, later on you encounter spheres which break into smaller spheres. Popping them can be challenging because not only do you have to use your harpoon effectively—which looks like a weapon Scorpion from Mortal Kombat would use—you also have to avoid a dozen enemies bouncing around. Staying alive is a challenge to say the least. Luckily you have multiple lives so it’s not an exceptionally punishing game.
The platforming elements get tricky too. You begin the game by jumping around with ease but then you’re given a grappling hook and the complexity of the levels ramps up dramatically. You have to swing around like Tarzan in many areas, trying to collect all the credits to upgrade your weapons and defenses. Spheroids is deceptively complex in multiple ways.
Speaking of upgrades, they’re quite costly. You can choose to spend some credits on “boosts” which grant you temporary abilities like a double hook but I don’t think that’s the way to go. I saved up and unlocked permanent upgrades which made the game significantly less challenging in later stages. While adopting this approach is somewhat painful during the first ten or so levels, it pays off later. The upgrades are incredibly powerful and game-changing.
When you’re playing the game, remember to break blocks. They sometimes drop power-ups which allow you to freeze time for a few seconds and help you recover health. I didn’t know this when I started playing the game. Had I know this it would’ve made certain sections much more doable.
Spheroids runs at 1080p 60 FPS on Xbox One and is incredibly smooth. This presentation is necessary because you’re involved in frenzied shooting and dodging. A slower frame rate with increased input lag would’ve made Spheroids unplayable in my opinion. I can’t stress how important it is for developers to adopt this when they release arcade-like games.
Summary
Overall, Spheroids is an enjoyable experience which will appeal to older gamers in my opinion. Those who loved games like Pang growing up will love Spheroids because it represents an evolution of the genre. Younger gamers will consider it a strange experiment instead of appreciating its history due to its bubble-popping nature. While I would’ve liked to see a more meaningful narrative as well as more variety in the shooting mechanics, I still think Spheroids is a game I can recommend for someone looking for an intense yet casual adventure.
Asher is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 1110 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: wrote over 1,100 ICXM pieces on Xbox news, hardware reviews, and platform commentary before joining Future plc’s Windows Central in 2017.