Astro Duel Deluxe (Switch eShop) Review

If there’s one message we should be getting from Nintendo’s marketing of the Switch, it’s that it’s a great party console and experience. Astro Duel Deluxe fits in with that message, with a simple to play and understand the experience, without too many embellishments to complicate a straightforward, fun time.

Astro Duel Deluxe is, to sum it up, a multiplayer Asteroids. You attack other players with both a simple cannon weapon, or stronger special weapons, like mines or lasers. Each stage has a varying amount of constraints and obstacles, like boundaries that move, black holes, and alternating lasers that split the arena vertically in two, then the same horizontally.

There are a fair bit of different options to play, but it’s all a bunch of variations of the aforementioned gameplay. Firstly is your Classic Mode, which offers probably the most basic and balanced version of the game. Party mode allows for up to 4 players to play the game in handheld mode, using touch controls that only let you turn right. Lastly is the Chaos mode, which allows up to 6 players, and a lot more item spawns.

Those modes are more of a template, as each mode also offers a few game types. You can have a ship deathmatch, where you’re out when your ship is destroyed, or you can have a pilot hunter mode, where destroying a ship will eject the pilot, which will float until killed, or they will respawn in a new ship, ready to get back into the battle. Both of these modes can be played free-for-all, or team based, making a total 4 game types. And then, on top of this, you can go into the settings and modify different parameters to your liking.

And if you’re the solo gamer type, you can play Classic and Chaos mode against AI. It’s perfectly serviceable if you want to play on your own, but this feels more at home as a sit-and-scream-at-your-friends-on-the-couch multiplayer game.

This is simply one of those games that has an uncomplicated premise, with a variety of game types that affect the win conditions more than the game itself. And that’s exactly what a game like this needs to be. While I wouldn’t recommend the game by its own right, I see this being in a lineup of a bunch of local multiplayer games on the Switch with friends. On its own, there isn’t much there for you.

Rating: 3/5