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A casual twin-stick shooter and a challenging rogue-lite experience | Full Review - Tesla Force

2K View2023-04-11

Tesla Force is a rogue-lite survival twin stick shooter developed and published by 10tons Ltd, set in an alternate history, pervaded by lovecraftian horror themes. It is available for mobile platforms, Switch, PC, and modern consoles.

🟩Pros

+A casual arcade gameplay with a challenging rogue-lite experience

+Procedurally generated campaign

+A wide variety of weapons, power-ups, upgrades, and abilities.

+Physical controller support

🟥Cons

-The mobile version has no multiplayer unlike the PC and Consoles

-The graphics looks outdated

Tesla Force is set in a world where Nikola Tesla's inventions have started glitching and are opening portals around the world, spawning beings from another dimension that mostly resembles lovecraftian horror beings. It’s up to Nikola Tesla himself and his ragtag group of historic figures to stop this madness once and for all.

This game looks familiar

That would be right, because the game is both a spin-off and the spiritual successor to the 2018 game Tesla vs Lovecraft, bearing many similarities in both gameplay and mechanics. Improving the gameplay in many aspects and adding a persistent progression system built in a rogue-lite manner. The fun factor is still retained and just improved upon, with the game mechanics being made much deeper now.

At its core, Tesla Force is top-down shooter, with two options of either using a twin-stick setup or a single stick setup where aiming and movement direction are one and the same. There are three camera modes, one being a literal top-down shooter angle and the other two having a more isometric top-down view.

Players can play as one of the four characters – Tesla, Lovecraft, Curie, and Shelley; and embark on a rogue-lite progression campaign with the characters using various electropunk-based weapons, abilities, and technologies to battle and kill monsters.

The game features a stylized art style that manages to create a lighthearted tone out of the otherwise horrifying lovecraftian elements. The graphics and visual effects aren’t the strongest point, looking like a game from the Xbox 360 era, but still a passable experience — especially on Mobile devices — due to its stylized art style.

Gameplay Analysis

The gameplay in Tesla Force is fast-paced and challenging, requiring quick reflexes, precise aiming, and strategic thinking, resulting in a frantic fun experience where surviving is the ultimate goal. Players move around the screen using the left stick and aim their weapon with the right stick, either as a touch input or on a supported physical controller.

As a twin-stick shooter, I find the default touch controls a bit unresponsive, thankfully can customize the position of the elements and resize them. I do highly recommend using physical controllers like the Razer Kishi, which is properly supported.

While the PC and console versions feature multiplayer, I find this feature to be non-existent with the mobile version. A shame, as cooperative gameplay can be a lot of fun with twin-stick survival shooters.

The game features a wide variety of weapons and power-ups that can be collected, unlocked, and upgraded throughout the levels, each with their own gimmicks that players can tailor to their playstyle. The weapons range from simple pistols and shotguns to plasma and tesla coil weapons. The game's difficulty increases as the player progresses via a “doomsday timer", with more enemies and obstacles thrown into the mix, keeping the gameplay frantically fresh and exciting.

A challenging rogue-lite gameplay

Each time the player starts a new run, they begin at the first level with a basic loadout depending on their current permanent unlocks. As they progress through the run, they can collect new weapons and perks that modify their character, earn experience points, and unlock new abilities. Players can also pilot Mechas for a limited time upon spawning, and upon risking to collect all parts scattered around the map, will provide some massive boosts to damage and survivability.

These aforementioned unlockable perks range from stat bonuses like health buffs or damage buffs, to more external buffs like a decreased teleport cooldown or a slower enemy movement speed. The different abilities are also looted in runs or unlocked permanently using crystals. Weapons power-ups can also be picked up that may add fire effects, increased fire rates, or even additional projectiles extremely amplifying the player’s damage temporarily.

However, if the player dies, they lose all of their campaign progress and must start over from the beginning except for what they unlock permanently using energy and crystals. This system encourages players to experiment with different loadouts and strategies, making each playthrough feel unique, while still being able to slowly get powerful over time.

Procedural generation

As for the procedurally generated rogue-lite campaign, players are given a limited selection of missions to take part in run after run, and consist mostly of having to complete varied types of objectives while surviving the onslaught of monsters. Some missions will have you collect parts to repair a contraption, some might need your pure endurance to survive while waiting for an analysis to complete. Complete these objectives and the mission is now completed and extraction is now unlocked. After a series of missions, it will culminate in a boss fight that will end the chapter once defeated

Conclusion:

Tesla Force is an excellent top-down shooter game that mixes a casual arcade gameplay with a challenging rogue-lite experience. Its individual missions are fun to play and can sometimes be mindless, but will ultimately still need some player finesse to survive. Its rogue-lite progression is forgiving enough to restarting players while still providing a hardcore element by resetting the campaign upon death. It’s worth a try for any fans of twin-stick survival shooter, especially with the game’s extremely affordable mobile versions.

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