There is no shortage of games that want to be the next Zelda. Most of them just swap in a pixel-art elf and call it done. Minishoot' Adventures, from Toulouse-based two-person studio SoulGame, takes a more creative swing: it keeps the dungeon design, the open-world item-gating, and the sense of exploration that defines classic top-down Zelda, then replaces the elf with a sentient spaceship and fills the screen with bullet-hell combat.
The result is, against most reasonable odds, excellent. When the game first launched on Steam in April 2024, it received more than 3,500 reviews, with 98% of them positive, and earned a Metacritic score of 87. That kind of reception from a studio the size of a large household is genuinely rare.
Today, console players finally get their turn. Publisher IndieArk and developer SoulGame have released the game for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Switch 2, Xbox One, and Switch, priced at US$15.99. It is also available via Game Pass, which for Australian Xbox subscribers means no additional outlay beyond their existing subscription.
The announcement came during Nintendo's Indie World showcase on 3 March, though the developer quickly expanded the scope of the launch by confirming the game would also be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. For Switch 2 owners, there is an added incentive: the Nintendo Switch 2 edition features a higher frame rate and enhanced resolution compared to the original Switch version.
What actually makes it tick
On paper, "Zelda meets bullet-hell" sounds like a genre-jam pitch cooked up in five minutes. In practice, the two halves fit together in ways that feel almost inevitable once you experience them. You pilot a small spacecraft around a handcrafted open world, earning new abilities that unlock previously inaccessible areas, exactly as you would in a classic metroidvania. The catch is that every enemy encounter is a twin-stick shooter skirmish, with projectile patterns that escalate in complexity as you progress through the game's dungeons.
The upgrade system adds another layer. Players collect materials from defeated enemies and scattered world objects to improve their ship's speed, fire rate, range, and power. Rarer currency, earned by finding hidden areas or defeating major bosses, can be exchanged for bigger weapons, map expansions, or a secret-finding tool called the Astrolabe. Crucially, the game includes a full respec system, letting players redistribute upgrade points at any time, including mid-boss fight, without penalty. That kind of player-friendly design is not always a given in games that borrow from the notoriously punishing bullet-hell genre.
As Game Informer noted in its review, Minishoot' Adventures draws clear inspiration from Zelda, specifically A Link to the Past, but by applying that formula to the twin-stick bullet-hell genre, it elevates itself to the top of the field. The accessibility options reinforce that ambition: three difficulty levels, three aiming modes (manual, assisted, or automatic), adjustable game speed, and toggleable unlimited health or energy mean the game genuinely welcomes players who might normally bounce off the genre.
A two-person studio worth watching
SoulGame is a team of two French cousins based in Toulouse, who since 2011 have crafted games using a method based on passion and the drive to create honest experiences. Minishoot' Adventures is their second major release, following Swords and Souls: Neverseen. The console port was handled by French porting studio Seaven Studio, a small publishing and porting outfit of fewer than ten people led by industry veteran Olivier Penot, based in France and founded in 2013.
For Australian players, the value calculation is straightforward. At roughly AU$25 on console storefronts (depending on exchange rates at time of purchase), or free with an existing Xbox Game Pass subscription, this is the kind of release that makes the indie sector worth paying attention to. The real question is whether a game this well-regarded on PC can find an equally enthusiastic audience on Switch and PS5, where Zelda-adjacent titles compete directly with Nintendo's own back catalogue on the eShop.
Given that fans have been calling for a console port on Steam since the PC version launched, the demand appears to have been there all along. Sometimes the best games just need time to reach the right hardware. Minishoot' Adventures has arrived, finally, where it probably always belonged.