Review: Hextreme Void (Nintendo Switch)
Hextreme Void is an action game developed by Double Mizzlee and published by Eastasiasoft. If you enjoy bullet-hell games, then this title will be up your alley. However, time spent with this game will be short lived.
First, this title isn’t complicated in the slightest, but it doesn’t explain anything. There’s no tutorial on how to play, no explanation of the goal, nor a list of what any of the power-ups or hexagons mean. I figured things out as I played, and there’s still one type of hexagon that I have no clue what it does.
The premise of Hextreme Void is to clear the screen from hexagons using bouncing balls. The balls will bounce off the walls and hexagons, eventually hitting them all and allowing you to move onto the next level. There are 250 levels total across five voids, each having fifty levels.
Some hexagons are purple with an image on it that I can’t quite make out. I don’t know what these hexagons do. Do they give extra money? Do they give extra experience points? I never figured it out, especially since the deeper you get into this game, the faster it goes.
The majority of the hexagons have numbers on them. For a while, I thought they were experience points. I was already on void five when I realized the numbers were basically hit points on the hexagon. One of the upgrades for your balls is “damage,” and another is “critical damage.” When mine was set to twelve, I watched closely as a ball hit a hexagon with the sixteen on it. Once hit, the number changed to four. So, I soon realized that the hexagons had “health,” if you will.
That said, I’m not sure how the experience points system works in Hextreme Void, but you do earn experience whenever you clear a hexagon. Once you level up, you’ll have the option to choose an upgrade at random. Upgrades include increasing the ball speed, adding a ball to the board, increasing the max number of balls you can have, adding ten seconds to the timer, adding a money multiplier, and more. Some of these upgrades, such as the ball speed, will get taken out of the rotation once you max out its permanent upgrade.
Once you complete a void (or lose) you’ll be brought back to the main menu with the money you earned from your previous playthrough. You can buy permanent upgrades to start your next playthrough stronger. For example, instead of starting with one ball on the screen, you can buy as many balls as you want (that maxes out at 100) and start your next round with 100 balls already in play. Other upgrades include increasing the timer amount to start, your ball damage, the amount of money you can earn, and the others you can boost upon leveling up in a round.
Power-ups are also available. They’ll appear randomly on the board and, if one of your balls hits it, the power-up will be temporarily activated. Hextreme Void has green balls, but some power-ups will multiply the balls you have and those will be blue. Your green ones may also turn red that will destroy a hexagon and its adjacent tiles. Or they’ll turn purple and go through the hexagons rather than bouncing off of them. These are also permanent upgrades in the menu to increase the lasting effect of these power-ups.
Aside from choosing an upgrade in between level-ups, there isn’t much to do in Hextreme Void. It was fun when I first started, especially since it’s the type of game where you’ll lose a lot in the beginning before you gradually get stronger, thus getting farther in your next playthrough. It took me three tries to get through the first void (the first fifty levels), but I cleared every void after that in one go.
One upgrade allows you to earn more money faster, so I had a ton of coins to spend in between rounds. I maxed out every single upgrade in under an hour of playing this game. Even with ten minutes on the timer, I was getting through void five, the hardest one, in a little over one minute. Watching the mass of balls clear the board is satisfying with fun colors and upbeat music, but I mindlessly chose the first upgrade in between leveling up because my upgrades were already so overpowered; it didn’t matter what I chose.
Hextreme Void has no leaderboards or high score list. Once you complete a void, you’ll see a list of stats—such as the damage you dealt and such—but there’s nothing to do with that information. Once you’ve completed all the voids and upgraded everything to the max, there’s no replayability. I had fun with this game in the beginning, but it quickly got too easy and now there’s nothing left for me to do. If you have a young kid or sibling, this would be a fun, simple title to try with them, especially for the asking price of $4.99.
