Developers embracing their love of ’80s arcade shoot ’em ups have my allegiance. If they work well, they can still pack a punch that places the genre up there with some of the most engaging and engrossing gaming available today. A fine example of this is Shapefighter, a new arena twin-stick shooter that puts its focus firmly on speed and precision. It isn’t interested in being around for a long time. Instead, it’s around for a good time!
Taking a neon Geometry Wars style approach to graphical design, this RBG-infused arena has a variety of shapes that will arrive over 25 waves and 5 bosses. Each shape has its own unique movement and attack patterns, and they’ll usually arrive in droves from all sides of the screen. Some like bombs or turrets will spawn inside the arena, and the player is given about a second to get out of the way before they do. A second may not sound like a lot of time, but Shapefighter is all about speed. You will rarely stay still as the enemy attack patterns simply won’t allow it. Shapefighter is designed to play like a high-speed bullet ballet, and you’ll need to aim and shoot your way around all the obstacles to survive.
You only have one gun and there are no upgrades for it. This is a highly skill-dependent experience, but there is a tactical shield which you can use to your advantage for two reasons. The first is that when you activate the shield, any bullets or weapons inside the blast will be killed or seriously harmed. The second reason is that the shield turns any bullets that touch its outer ring into collectable points. Each 100 of them and you’ll get an extra life (then 200, 300 and so on). This means you might be tempted to trigger the shield at high bullet density moments to try and skim an extra life out of the situation rather than simply dodging everything. That said, the shield has a charge to it, and when that reaches maximum charge, it will passively farm those collectable points too. It can also trigger a bigger explosion if you wait, but your skills may not allow that to happen often.
If you die in the game and reach a game over with no continues left, you’ll be granted an extra continue for your next run. This is because you can only win the Steam achievements and get onto the online leaderboards if you start each run from level 1. I really like this idea as it encourages learning whilst enabling you to get further through brute force, too. Players can choose to start with all their continues from any other level they have reached, but no achievements or leaderboards will be available.
Bosses in Shapefighter come in three attack phases and most of them involve multiple waves of bullets that overlap, requiring you to dodge and nip in and out of temporary gaps. They aren’t hugely memorable, although one does swing around the screen and can swipe you to death with ease. What the bosses do very well is showcase just how pixel-perfect the collision detection is for Shapefighter. Bullets will graze the sides of your shape, but if they don’t hit the point at the front, you will survive. The gaps you need to aim for are sometimes tiny, and Shapefighter’s nimble, predictable, and fluid controls make this a joyful challenge to tackle. Add on a furious soundtrack of beats and bass that gets you fired up, and you have a classic in the making.
Shapefighter is the perfect example of taking a simple, small idea and executing every element of it to make it a success. It is a joy to play by being visceral, consistent, and rewarding. Long live the retro twin-stick shooter. If you love these games and an online leaderboard competition, this should be a day-one purchase.
Review copy provided by the developer. Shapefighter is out on PC on 31st July 2025.
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