General Information
With plentiful neon and a gentle, abstract soundtrack, Breakout Beyond is an oddly therapeutic game that, while challenging at times, eases you into a deep sense of calm with its presentation. Bricks break apart with muted bangs and quick bursts of colour like miniature fireworks, and when you get a good chain going, it can be quite the visual feast.
Based on Atari's '70s arcade smash, moving the action onto its side (you broke blocks at the top of the screen in the original) might sound like sacrilege to veteran fans, but it works well. Each brick you destroy inches you across to the right until you come to the end goal. As before, you’ll want to position your shots so that your ball effectively bounces around on its own for as long as possible, thus clearing your way and scrolling the screen along accordingly.
To help, Beyond introduces several abilities gained by breaking the relevant special brick. These include multiple balls, a temporary barrier behind your paddle, a laser that shoots from your paddle, and more. You can stack them up, too, so you may well find yourself in a position where you’re juggling seven or eight balls in one go while shooting lasers at the same time. It’s pretty thrilling.
Naturally, there are going to be moments where the action gets a bit too chaotic to keep track of in normal gameplay. During moments like this, you can hold down ‘R’ to slow time and give yourself a few precious seconds to regain control. When you’ve got several balls shooting back at you, some inevitably slip by and disappear into the nether, but it’s good that the game gives you an extra hand when needed. Single-player and local co-op are on offer, with the latter allowing you to play through the entire thing with a friend.
Amongst the new additions, however, the biggest is the ability to curve your shots. By hitting a ball while moving your paddle, you can add spin, and this can help massively in threading the needle and getting your ball to sneak behind a giant wall of bricks. It’s a little tough to get to grips with at first (there were several moments where we tried to add spin and wound up just moving our paddle out of the ball’s way), but once you do, it adds an immensely satisfying layer of strategy.
Overall, Breakout Beyond performs wonderfully on Switch. Frame rate is solid and load times are pleasingly brisk (though instantaneous would be nice). The only gripe we have is that some of the smaller menu text can look a little blurry in handheld mode, but given the overall lack of text in the game, it’s not a dealbreaker. Whether you’re an old-school fan or a newcomer, Breakout Beyond may be the best way to experience Atari's stone-cold classic.
