Back in the heady beforetimes of 2018, we reviewed a little indie game from Berzerk Studio that did exactly what it said on the tin. Just Shapes & Beats, a self-described ‘musical bullet hell’ , had you manoeuvring a little shape to avoid taking a beating from an environment keyed in to whatever banging chiptune track the level was built around.
If you haven’t played it, you really should because it’s excellent (ergo the ‘Excellent – 9/10’ on the end of our review). If you’ve been waiting for an excuse to play it, here’s one: Eight years on, it’s finally getting a physical release.
Fangamer is putting out the Canadian team’s first Switch game in July, priced at $35/€39. For your cash you get the game on cart, naturally, plus an instruction manual, poster, and sticker sheet.
Here’s a little PR blurb and some better pics of the bits:
Just Shapes & Beats debuted to rave reviews in 2018, and Berzerk has kept the party bumpin’ ever since via several free content updates, delighting hundreds of thousands of players. Boosted by homages to other beloved titles through a Shovel Knight-themed Mixtape, a remix of Undertale’s Spider Dance, and a face-melting rendition of the Mortal Kombat movie’s theme, Just Shapes & Beats is a joyous blitz ready to make even the grumpiest goth kids crack a smile.
Back in 2018, one *checks notes* Gavin Lane wrote, “the sheer verve of Just Shapes & Beats is infectious. True to its name, the elements are simple, but Berzerk Studio explores and executes on its modest premise with an exceptional level of polish. It injects pure joy into the oppressive, pulsing panic of Super Hexagon and creates a celebratory explosion of the audio-visual in video games.”
If that sounds tasty, pre-order pages are live on Fangamer’s US and EU sites. Merge Games put out a physical version of the also-excellent Infernax, so it’s great to see the studio’s previous work get the cart treatment. Let us know below if you loved the game as much as we did.
