Super Arc Light Review

Super Arc Light is what would happen if you took the circular dodging that you find in Super Hexagon and proceeded to mash it together with an old-school shoot-em up. Created by No Code Creative and published by Channel 4, the game has found itself on both iOS and Android devices in the past week.

When it comes to gameplay, Super Arc Light is less focused on dodging and surviving, and more towards the shoot-em up end of the spectrum. You see, gameplay consists of your character spinning around a circle in the middle of the screen and around that circle enemies will proceed to spawn in. To defeat these enemies, you place your finger on the screen; your ship will then slow down and fire an onslaught of bullets, up until you take your finger off. After you take your finger off, your ship will rotate around the circle in the other direction.

Similar to the classic Space Invaders, enemies will also move around the circle, requiring you to shoot them, because if they stay alive for too long they dive head first into said circle, ending your run. Which brings up something I found strange about Super Arc Light: losing the run. It doesn’t matter where on the circle you are; if an enemy dives head first into it, you lose. At first, I found that to be quite a surprising gameplay element, which in all fairness does make the whole game a lot more stressful, but for an entirely different reason.

You see the real issue with the game that is quite difficult to pick up, is the accuracy. Aiming your shots is not an easy feat and a lot of the time you will find yourself holding down the screen as you follow an enemy, in the hopes that you catch up to them before they end your run. Even in cases where you are getting more accurate with your shots, accidentally hitting the screen even once sends you in the opposite direction and can quickly become jarring if you’re trying to situate yourself.

When it comes to the visuals in the game, however, the developers have really pulled off a treat with this one. Super Arc Light goes for a simplified art-style, but one that has an assortment of colourful visual effects, without distracting too much from the main gameplay features of the game.

Whereas the visuals are easily considered a treat, audio is not quite the same experience. Audio from a soundtrack perspective is rather dull and boring, and you’re bound to hear it on loop the longer you survive. If it wasn’t quite as repetitive, I would be opening the game 50% of the time for the awesome soundtrack. But due to how disappointing the soundtrack is, it reduces my want to play the game, and even when I do, my phone is more than likely just going to stay on silent.

To keep things entertaining for the player, the game does allow you to unlock new and exciting weapons, with the typical shoot-em up weapon upgrades of double shot and shotgun appearing. But, these upgrades aren’t permanent and only appear whilst in-game, and only for a few seconds after you shoot them. These boosts are essential for surviving into the later rounds of the game, but once again, they do require you to aim and shoot them to receive the effect.

It should come as no surprise that an arcade game has absolutely no story whatsoever, meaning that your only real reason for coming back to it, other than gameplay, is to increase your score. With each and every run you go on, by the end of it you are presented with your score for that run and your previous best. Other than the typical, “beat your score” mentality that this system totes; there is also a leaderboard in the game as well. These leaderboards are global, allowing you the opportunity to see where you rank amongst some of the greatest players in the game and really does extend its life.

Overall, Super Arc Light is a bit of a mixed bag. Visually, the simplified, retro graphics the game has is a visual treat, and makes loading the game up a nice, visual experience. But, the same can’t be said for the soundtrack which is too repetitive too quickly. Gameplay is rather a hit and miss, and leads me to believe that the developers missed a trick with it. Dying to an enemy being on the screen for too long, rather than failing to dodge them seems like a poor design decision, especially when you consider just how much the screen starts to fill with enemies later on down the line.