Just Shapes & Beats is a music-rhythm bullet-hell downloadable shooter that requires the player to do a lot less shooting and a lot more dodging. The game has been developed for both PC and Nintendo Switch and was released on the 31st May 2018 by Berzerk Studio, the same team behind the popular flash games, Berzerk Ball 1 and 2.
You’re wondering. Which platforms can I enjoy Just Shapes & Beats now on?
Well, as of the time of writing the game can be played on PC and Nintendo Switch. We hope, it’s soon gonna come to PS4 and Xbox One.
How to Download Just Shapes and Beats
The game can be downloaded from Steam. You can also become a happy owner of Just Shapes & Beats – Monstercat Track Selection which includes some cool tracks. Here’s the song list.
- Lets Be Friends – FTW
- nanobii – Rainbow Road
- Nitro Fun – Cheat Codes
- Nitro Fun – Final Boss
- Nitro Fun – New Game
- Noisestorm – Barracuda
- Pegboard Nerds – Try This
- PIXL – Sugar Rush
- Tokyo Machine – Hype
- Tristam – Once Again
- Tristam – Till It’s Over
To begin your download click on the Download button at the end of the review. It’s also worth to know that you can get the official Just Shapes and Beats OST from Spotify. Check this song list as well. There are 40 of them!
The Game Review
With Just Shapes & Beats music shooter, the idea of the game is to avoid everything the game can throw at you, all in time with the epic soundtrack.
But there’s a kicker…
Despite being a game with no dialogue, Just Shapes & Beats does, in fact, have a story. The game starts off with you taking on the role of a square and its quest to collect triangular artifacts.
As if that’s not enough…
…once you’ve collected enough, you fight against the big bad evil and save the world.
Shortly after the victory, though, the boss steals the triangles from you again to increase their overall power and causes the square’s world to become corrupted.
We’re not through yet.
After the series of events, you as the square must once again go out on a quest to collect all of the triangles and to once again fight and defeat the boss to save their world from certain doom!
What’s the bottom line?
Just Shapes & Beats gameplay is relatively simple. You take on the role of a square and must make it to the end of the song, dodging all of the shapes that get thrown at them throughout the song.
With every beat of the song, an attack is thrown at you, and with every attack following the beat of the song, things eventually get quite hectic.
So what should you do then?
To avoid the shapes, all you need to do is move your square out of the way of their trajectory, just like someone would in a bullet-hell shooter.
Wanna learn a special trick? Here it is.
There is also a dash move that can be used for a very brief stint of invincibility to move through objects quickly without taking a life.
Throughout the song there are different checkpoints depending on how far you get, so even if you do die, only a small part of the song is reset, but it does mean you won’t be getting a high rank for the song.
So, what are the ways the game can be played, exactly?
JS&B has, in fact, a couple of different modes to offer you, with the main one being the campaign.
The campaign is designed to teach you the basics while getting you through all of the songs of the game and enjoying the story as it unfolds in front of you.
There is also the arcade option, where you can pick a song and play it from start to finish, so you can practice the song without having to go through all of story mode just to play it again.
Another popular mode is “party mode”, which effectively acts like a radio, where it will play all of the songs in the game, while getting you the chance to enjoy all of the flashy lights the game has on offer, without actually having to play.
But has it any cool graphics?
Aesthetically, the game uses a very distinct and simplified visual style that works exceptionally well for it as a whole. Every shape in the game is made up of no more than one or two colours, but with its animations, the simplicity of the colors really makes all of the game’s visuals pop, especially when they pop with the music perfectly on time. So yes, it’s cool.
So you’re wondering whether this game is for you, right?
Well, for any fan of Guitar Hero, Rockband, Osu! or just any music-rhythm game ever, this is going to be a great addition to their library. Are you one of them?
Even if you’re not…
…you should know that the game has a great variety of tracks with gameplay that doesn’t easily become boring, even after hours of repeated play. And it’s pure and awesome action too!
