One of the things I love most about independent games is the unique ideas they have that end up creating something new and really fun. That’s what I found in Minishoot’ Adventures from Seaven Studio and SoulGame Studio. Minishoot’ Adventures is best described as a twin-stick shooter mixed with The Legend of Zelda. Yes, that may seem hard to envision but it works and as someone who is a big fan of both of those things it’s why I came away from this one so impressed.
Minishoot’ Adventures features a story but much like most twin-stick shooters it takes more of a backseat to the gameplay here but does give motivation to what you are doing. An evil force called The Unchosen and his minions have destroyed your village and trapped all of your friends in crystal and you set off in your spaceship in order to free them and put an end to this evil force.
You’ll start the game off in a cave as you learn the basics of moving and shooting your little ship. It didn’t take long at all as I fought my way through the enemies in this first cave for me to fall in love with the gameplay. I love twin-stick shooters and this one feels great on the sticks. Once I got out of the cave and into the overworld I liked it even more as the joy of just exploring and upgrading my abilities emerged. Enemies are varied throughout each area of the game both in their look and their bullet attack patterns. I always enjoyed learning and navigating my way through their patterns and the game almost always presents itself to give you a fair view of the action. The game can be tough but always felt fair to me plus there are also different difficulties and accessibility options to make it easier or harder which is awesome.
Upgrading your abilities is key to exploring the world more and taking on its challenges. Enemies you defeat drop crystals that you can then spend on upgrading things like the range of your attacks, your speed, or how much damage you do. Get to a point in the game where you are struggling and wishing you spent your upgrades on other stats? No problem as you can reassign your points and get your crystals back to spend on another stat if you need to. Outside of the regular enemies the game has a set of bosses in the world to face off against. They are marked on your map and you can take them on any time but you may want to spend time upgrading your ship before doing so. Each boss was challenging and fun to take down with their massive size and attacks.
As you explore the world and free your friends they will go back to your base to provide bigger upgrades for your ship so it’s worth going back and checking with them for that. And so the core loop is to go out, crush enemies and solve puzzles in dungeons, collect currency and free your friends to get more upgrades to get stronger and get new abilities to then access more areas of the world that you couldn’t before. That’s why it has that fun Zelda exploration but also the excellent dual stick shooting controls. I spent over a dozen hours in my first playthrough and kind of want to go back and play even more because it was so enjoyable. Really the only part of the game I feel could’ve been better is that it doesn’t explain a lot to the player so you have to figure a lot out for yourself. This didn’t bother me much but I could see how it may bother others.
Visually this game has a colorful and very clean presentation. There is a lot of variety in enemies and the world although some areas do somewhat look samey. The music and sound design was another thing I really liked as things like the bullets and enemy sounds were satisfying and there was a good variety of tunes for each area of the game I explored.
Minishoot’ Adventures will no doubt go down as one of my favorite indie games of 2026 when it’s all said and done I feel. From the moment I started playing I was enjoying myself with the smooth twin-stick shooting controls. The world is colorful and fun to explore and I enjoyed trying to find all of its secrets as I blasted apart my enemies, took on bosses, and rescued my friends while getting stronger along the way. If you have any interest in top-down twin-stick shooters or games with fun exploration I can’t recommend Minishoot’ Adventures to you enough.
*Minishoot’ Adventures is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, and PC. PlayStation 5 version reviewed. Review copy provided by the publisher for this review.
Minishoot' Adventures
$15.99
Pros
- Responsive and fluid twin-stick shooting
- World is fun and rewarding to explore
- Visuals are colorful and crisp
- Fun and satisfying tunes and sound effects
- Options to make game easier or harder
Cons
- Doesn't do the best job of explaining things
