Astro Bears Party (Switch) Review

Astro Bears Party is a new indie title for the Nintendo Switch. This party game is published by Qubic Games, who for full disclosure provided us with a review copy. Astro Bears Party was made by a newly formed team called SONKA, who are focused on delivering new titles for the Switch. So is Astro Bears Party worth the price of admission or is it unBEARable? This is PushDustIn for Source Gaming, and let’s get started with our review.

Story:

Astro Bears Party, in line with its genre, doesn’t feature that much of a story. There’s no explanation for why the bears are flying around in space, nor why they are trying to brutally murder each other. The game is focused solely on its gameplay. Each character does have a short description, but that’s as far as Astro Bears Party’s narrative goes.

Gameplay:

The game has two modes, single player and multiplayer. In the single player mode, players must hunt down the ‘Jetfish’ around a planet. Completing the level objective will advance the player to the next level. This is essentially 3D Snake. As more Jetfish are collected, the longer the trail behind the Astro Bear will become. Selecting a different bear will give the player different stats. The game does keep track of high scores locally, but it only records the character that was being played as. This means it will become difficult to track scores among friends who are playing on the same console, and the game loses some of its’ replayability from that. Furthermore, there are no online leaderboards. For what it’s worth, the game does control very smoothly and the loading times are minimal. Anytime I ran into my own trail I definitely thought it was my fault.

The second mode is multiplayer, and it is also BEAR bones. There is only one mode, that being death match. It’s essentially 3D Tron. I’ve played this mode for awhile with friends, and it seems like it’d be a decent game to play with your pals. The options for multiplayer are extremely limited; you select the size of the map, and the amount players need to score, and that’s it. I wish that the Jetfish mode was available in multiplayer, or if the multiplayer mode at least offered a few different maps or obstacles. There’s a lot of room for improvement with this title.

Presentation:

The game looks BEARly good. There is a cohesive style, and everything is laid out nicely. There are not many options, but there also doesn’t need to be. The game was made with the Switch in mind, taking full advantage of HD Rumble and having its’ graphics tailored for the system. Look at the bear holding the Switch! It’s so cute! Overall, I dig the style of Astro Bears Party.

Verdict:

The game is going for 4.99 on the Nintendo eShop when it releases on September 28th. I’m sure the wait is unBEARable. So, let me just present the final score for Astro Bears Party.