Godstrike is a timely twist on the boss rush / bullet hell genre where time is your health bar. In this twin-stick shooter, you’ll take on a full roster of unforgiving bosses in stylized 3D arenas. You take control of Talaal, the last of the gods’ seven masks. She’s a herald who’s trapped in a war that is not her own. The game’s boss fights are a cycle that’s impossible for her to break free of. Godstrike slams players against not only perilous odds, but against the clock as well, creating a unique kind of torment. And through all this, you’re somehow meant to clutch victory – good luck!

For those new to bullet hell games, they rely on players avoiding endless waves of projectiles while also trying to shoot back. The hell refers to the often overwhelming intensity of the action. What Godstrike brings to this style of game lays somewhere between arena boss grinding and controlled chaos. The most unique twist here is that your health bar is also a time limit. Take too many hits and suddenly you have no time left to defeat the boss.

Before matches, players arrive at an area where they can select what abilities they wish to carry into the battle in a preparatory phase. These abilities are separated into Arcane and Occult categories that are represented as giant books. The Arcane abilities are the physical ones, in the sense that they often cause damage when used on the boss. These also come at the cost of time / health. The Occult abilities are all passive. Not needing to be assigned to a button, Occult abilities work throughout the match with no prompting or time removed from the health bar. Once inside the arena, the player is on their own with whatever abilities they brought with them.

Godstrike features the following modes:

– Arena mode was where I spent most of my time as it gives you full access to the Arcane and Occult abilities without having to grind to unlock them. 

– Story mode plays like Arena mode interestingly enough. The only difference is that you need to grind to unlock Arcane and Occult abilities and as a bonus, it has the opening slideshow and other various story inserts.

– Daily Challenge mode was something I didn’t expect to like, though I do appreciate the challenge it presents. Players have their abilities chosen for them as a means of constraint and then they have 1 chance to defeat as many bosses as possible. As you can probably guess, I didn’t get past the first one, but it was interesting playing under those specific parameters.

– Challenge mode is a replayable version of the Daily Challenge that gives you the ability to input a seed code and gain access to a specific challenge.

Every battle I won in Godstrike came in the extra time phase. Often the final hit on the boss coming moments before my own demise, which was quite exhilarating. This feels like an intention of the extra time phase. It makes winning a thrill because one more hit means game over so the stakes really can’t be higher. I was often left wondering after a win if I could’ve done better. While this adds to replayability in a game like this, it feels like a cheap hit of adrenaline. It wasn’t a victory earned so much as a participation trophy before it was back to the staging area to prepare for the next fight.

I’m also curious as to why there is no access to health drops in the battles or ways to recoup a few seconds here and there. It’s more common than not for health pickups to be available in boss battles, yet here the health bar and the time seem so intertwined that this is forgotten. Honestly, the battles suffer without it because it made me unwilling to try anything risky including using any Arcane ability for fear of losing time. I might be a less skilled player than some, but in the end, it just removes accessibility to part of the game without reason. It feels like there is no way a player can feasibly sacrifice 40 seconds to use an Arcane ability from a 5-minute health bar when many bosses require every second you have. Even the added easy mode seems insincere when the time budget still won’t give you enough wiggle room to comfortably carry Arcane abilities.

The art style honestly works for the game and I could see myself grinding this more if the game provided difficulty options. I found the boss Sentinel an instant favourite with the arena perfectly crafted to suit the logistics of the fight. The Sentinel, for the first few boss health tiers, remains chained to a purple crystal at the centre of the room. This limits his mobility within the arena to an extent that makes him fairly easy to avoid but his glowing purple battle axe and blasts of projectiles aren’t quite so avoidable. Each of the bosses that I’ve managed to encounter has been situated in a unique arena that adds to the experience of taking them on, but Sentinel is already my favourite.

Coming into Godstrike, it’s clear that the Story mode isn’t the focus and honestly with this style of game it doesn’t need to be at the forefront. That said, what is presented left me feeling rather unsatisfied. The Story mode tries to add flavour to the game but what it presents borders on cliché. The writing on opening had me intrigued but not enough to compel me into the mode. After multiple runs at Tutoriaal, I could barely remember what had been presented in that opening cinematic anyway. This mode could really have benefited from a less is more approach. Cut out the prologue and instead reveal details through the player character and the boss encounters. I would have loved to have seen characterization of the bosses beyond their arena designs. I did find the slides before each of the battles interesting as they set the tone of the encounter in a way the prologue scene could only dream of doing.

The controls easily become a shortfall and definitely won’t be forgiving to players unfamiliar with the concept of twin-stick shooters. It’s easy to overcorrect both the movement or the aiming even when you’ve got experience. The selected Arcane abilities are displayed on the screen but the assigned ZL/L/R/ZR on the Switch isn’t marked. This caused me to often activate the wrong one in the heat of a battle. This coupled with the use of both Joy-Con joysticks becomes overwhelming at times, even feeling like it would be more suited to a mouse and keyboard. I tested playing with the Switch in handheld mode and playing with it connected to a wireless controller and found the controls convoluted both times.