Quickfire high score chaser games may have gone out of fashion compared to their arcade heydays but they contain the very essence of what makes gaming so fun. A simple challenge, increasingly difficulty and odds for success and a need to learn a skill and improve. Circle Hitter, a solo developed game, offers just this and its a lovely slice of arcade fun.
Circle Hitter takes place in a circular arena where geometric shapes spawn around its perimeter. When they do, they start firing mini bullet versions of themselves at you, a tiny circle inside the arena armed with an attack. What you need to do is bat back the enemy fire to the opponents and smash them off the perimeter fence whilst avoiding all the other fire. Doing it in quick succession brings a combo meter for bigger points and you get 3 hit points before game over occurs.
Its fast and frantic stuff that works a bit like turning up the heat for a frog in water. The first few enemies are quite easy to dispatch and with less projectiles coming at you, there is time to line up and aim a shot. As enemies are always moving you have to aim slightly ahead of them which takes a bit of getting used to but after a few goes, everything clicks and you’ll be batting projectiles back at speed. That can cause a problem though as your character has a stamina bar which prevents you from just button mashing for a high score. You need to be precise otherwise you’ll need to dodge bullets and wait for a recharge to complete to start batting again. That in turn means more enemies will be on the screen so your odds of survival reduce. Circle Hitter is tough but fair and more enemy types arrive in bigger quantities to cause you havoc at a steady rate.
You do have a few tricks up your sleeve too. There are several circles with different stats such as stamina recovery speed and hit speed (the animation of a hit). Each circle has a special ability too such as bullet time, enlarging your attacks, bouncing your attack back like a basketball or even kitty clawing for victory. These unique attacks can then be enhanced by completing each circles individual trial. This involves hitting every enemy in the trial and keeping their light on but if you hit the enemy again, their light goes off. Its tricky and requires reaching a basic score level to unlock before you can attempt it. That’s good though because winning the trial makes your circle much more potent and allows you to get further in the game.
Every circle has its own online leaderboard and that pulls you back for more repeatedly. It also shows whose won the trial too and they usually hold the top spots so that makes it imperative to win. Outside of that, I love the clean visual design, the slow burn of the soundtrack as it gets more intense and the crisp hit detection which this type of game requires to be a top tier contender. I’m delighted to say Circle Hitter is just that too – a top tier high score chaser. I have no complaints with the game – especially for £2.50 – its a bargain and works beautifully. All I wanted was an addictive score chaser and that’s exactly what I got. Enjoy the good old arcade fun and I hope to see you on the leaderboards.
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