Stick ‘bullet hell’ in a press release and I’m all but guaranteed to pay attention. Zoe Begone!, from developer Retchy, takes heavy waves of bullets and paints them with hand drawn visuals that pop off the screen in an almost papercraft way, and threaten with a ‘hand of God’ like foe called the Animator – a large human hand wielding various artistic implements such as paint brushes and pens. It’s all very stylish, and there’s a core here that is fun to play, but I found myself struggling to settle into a rhythm with Zoe Begone! due to some awkwardly implemented controls and feel to the action.
The titular Zoe – our green triangle with legs and a gun – has a few abilities at their disposal. Running along the bottom of the screen, they can shoot in five directions (left, right, up, and the diagonals). This is all well and good, but in order to really take on the enemies we’ll need to go airborne. Zoe can jump and dash, but holding the jump button for a moment lets them fly about the screen at the cost of only being able to shoot left and right. The levels loop around on themselves, so between running and flying Zoe can simply scroll one way endlessly, each pass giving us another go at the enemies or collectibles on offer.
Occasionally the Animator will block Zoe into a screen-sized area and unleash some extra powerful enemies. Surviving this can be tough but rewarding as the score bumps up massively and we can gain a good amount of apples (the in-game currency) to spend in the store at the end of each level (or Film). Clear all the foes out and a final boss appears to really test our health bar and survival skills, often filling the screen with attacks and enemies all in one fell swoop.
This premise is pretty tried and true of bullet hell style games; gradually introduce more and more enemies and bullets, then one final screen filling effort before moving onto the next stage. And for what it’s worth, Zoe Begone! manages this aspect pretty well. The enemies are tough but can be fun to tackle, and the sheer carnage on screen is a treat for the eyes as colours pop and explosions go off all over the place.
My issue lies in the aforementioned abilities, and the unintuitive nature of play. Running on the ground is straightforward, but being limited to the five directions of fire when we’re using the analogue stick feels off in a way that I could just never get used to fully. Jumping and flying was also very hit and miss for me, in a way that I was never sure if I was doing something wrong, or the game was not picking up my inputs. I eventually found that using the analogue trigger to jump and fly was hit and miss, but if I put my hair trigger locks on (which effectively turns them into a binary on/off button) it worked a lot better and more frequently. It still was an odd system to get used to though and was not something I ever found a groove with.
Being limited to the left/right firing while airborne also sat poorly, although I can sort of see the logic behind it; if you can fire all around while in the air, why would you ever land? Granted, Zoe gets a powerful, energy limited dash to use as well, but it was hard to judge if this hit/killed enemies, or if I was just putting myself into danger on the other side. It really felt as though airborne play just needed some more flexibility in aiming, and – once again – that groove that makes or breaks a bullet hell shooter was just not there for me. There’s also the element that if we fly too low we land without warning, and this threw me off more times than I can count. Then having to hope I can get airborne quickly was even more awkward in the heat of the action.
I keep coming back to this idea of a groove state, when the action is flowing and we’re dodging and weaving, firing and collecting in fast action games, and that’s what draws me to bullet hell titles. The constant on the edge feeling, the deft escapes and final shot kills can be exhilarating, but it’s all too easy for a game to put even minor roadblocks in to disrupt things. Sadly, while there’s definitely some cool stuff within Zoe Begone! in its art and overall style, I just couldn’t gel with the gameplay and found my attention wandering after far too short a playtime each night.
Conclusion
A bit of style over substance, with Zoe Begone!’s controls proving too big a hurdle in getting to the fun for my tastes.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
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