Magnet Crusher Review

Magnet Crusher is an arcade-style arena shooter with neon graphics, just like the classic bullet hell visuals we all know and love. Much like other arcade titles, the premise is quite simple: you control two magnets with your mouse, and whichever one you click attracts the ball to it, crushing all the enemies in between. Huh, it occurred to me only now that's why the game is named Magnet Crusher. 

Although the magnet mechanic isn't exactly bad it makes for a bit of a clunky feature, as your ball will gravitate awkwardly around the magnet for what feels like forever before finally settling down. This was my biggest gripe with the game, as waiting for it to orbit often broke the fast-paced action that I had been enjoying, and at times would even get me hit by the enemies and killed. 

Another thing that broke the flow of the action was how slowly enemies spawned. They'd be trapped in the little portal for a long time before appearing, and I never really saw why that was necessary. Unfortunately, with the awkwardly long pauses between enemy waves and the orbiting, the game wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped it would be. 

Additionally, there are only eight upgrades available, and none of them felt very game-changing. In fact, most of them are abilities that you can use.  For example, there is one that shoots four lasers, but they’re so underwhelming, weak, and difficult to land that I had to check to make sure the ability had triggered whenever I used it. The upgrades and abilities contributed so little to the gameplay that I often forgot I even had them as I zoomed from left to right smashing the enemies with the ball. Aside from that, they were quite underwhelming in graphics and fun too, unfortunately.

Magnet Crusher does offer different types of enemies that range from throwing lasers across the map to just making a small electric force field around themselves. Unfortunately, they didn't really add much difficulty to the levels, as I quickly learned that I could just smash into them before they used their abilities; it wasn't even a stressful situation as they take so long to charge up and do damage. That's not to say I never died in the game, however, as I did perish a handful of times, but I never really understood why I was taking damage. It seemed like I had to have pretty high momentum or they would hit me instead. 

Aside from the different enemy types, the levels don't really change much. It's always an arena with the same two magnets on either side and enemies spawning all over the map. Although there were some new gimmicks implemented as the levels went on (such as a moving wall), it never felt like it made a big difference as you'd still just mindlessly smash into enemies (or awkwardly gravitate around accidentally smashing enemies) and move onto the next level. 

The idea isn't bad. I just think that the game would have benefited from something other than just zooming from side to side, like power-ups or collectibles. Heck, even skins for the ball would've given me something to farm for!