Up, down, left, right. Before playing Resogun

Many shooters are fought on a flat plane, but Resogun takes that plane and wraps space onto itself, creating a cylindrical battlefield. This choice sounds strange on paper, as it literally sends you around in circles, but the result is novel and refreshing gameplay. Enemies on the other side of the map can be seen before they’re encountered, letting you better judge the opposition and ration your limited weapons. Your standard laser rounds follow the curvature of the map, but only for a short distance. This allows for some tricky maneuvering, like trying to pick off enemies from outside of their most effective ranges. Mindless blasting is, thankfully, neither encouraged nor welcomed here.

Believe it or not, this isn't a bad situation.

It’s immediately noticeable that your ship can’t fire up or down – only horizontally. What initially seems like an arbitrary decision soon becomes a clear message: pay more attention to your positioning. Overcoming your limited attack angles means doubling down on movement skills, which prepares you for Resogun’s trickiest stages. It’s a teaching technique that feels more useful and more fun than any tutorial or loading screen hint.

The arsenal is nothing out of the ordinary for a side-scrolling shooter. You can shoot, boost, launch bombs, and unleash a devastating overdrive beam that slows and decimates nearby enemies. The kicker is, aside from your standard lasers, everything is limited in some way. You start a level with only a few bombs, for example, and your powerful overdrive attack is charged only after collecting parts from defeated enemies. Resogun also rewards you with points for not activating any bombs during a round, so using one feels like both a victory and a loss. These restrictions lead to wonderfully tense moments where you’ll fight within an inch of your life before unleashing a super weapon because you don’t want to be penalized. The power Resogun offers is not without consequence, and I enjoyed that ever-present tension.

Many of the stages look similar, but at least they all look great. When the screen is packed with enemies, glowing and twirling and spewing lasers and fireballs, it’s hard not to be impressed. The music, equally energetic and upbeat, is an excellent soundtrack for cosmic destruction. In a game like Resogun where gameplay is king, it’s imperative the frame rate never dips, and despite the veritable fireworks display, it stayed smooth. Loading

Resogun promotes aggression through score multipliers that reset if you don’t score kills frequently enough, though not the reckless sort. You’ll have to play skillfully and without a moment of downtime. This need for speed couples well with Resogun’s boost feature, which lets you travel through enemies, and triggers an area-of-effect attack when you drop back to normal speed. Timing your boosts to escape danger or destroy a massive cluster of enemies requires foresight and restraint, and pulling it off always feels great. When a game’s goals directly inform its mechanics as Resogun’s do, that’s a sign of terrific game design.

On top of that, at the beginning of each level you’re given one optional instruction: “Save the last humans.” Rescuing tiny people from their scattered cube prisons isn’t just a fun side distraction to keep you busy; it, like many other parts of Resogun, reinforces the idea that you need to keep moving at all times. It also earns you some extra points, lives, or bombs for your trouble.

Ride the bomb wave for the best way to gather voxels.

Though Resogun’s expectations for you are rigid, it offers a choice of three spacecraft with which to face its challenges. The selection is a standard but comprehensive lineup: one is fast and weak, one is slow and powerful, and one is balanced. Not having to unlock them was a smart move on the designers’ part.

The five stages end in boss battles, but not all of them put up a real fight. For example, you must venture inside of one of the bosses, shooting it while avoiding moving beams and walls. Another fires lasers out of each hole you blast into it, making the fight more difficult as you progress. Others can be defeated simply by fleeing and firing behind you while occasionally boosting. After fighting to the bone to reach a supposedly difficult enemy, it’s a shame to sometimes be let off the hook so easily. Loading

Speaking of high scores, if you don’t find them to be a sufficient carrot at the end of the stick, Resogun’s short play time may leave you wanting more. It takes around an hour to beat the missions on normal difficulty, but it should absolutely be replayed for high scores. Higher difficulties put a welcome pressure on, and had my palms sweating the sweat of a challenge well-met. Because missions are quick, and because there’s a nice variety of tough enemies and maneuvers available, Resogun encourages you to keep coming back to nab the high score and dethrone your friends.

If you’re not the competitive type, the online-only co-op mode is a great way to enjoy Resogun with a friend. There are no specific two-player moves or other actual co-op mechanics, but it’s still fun coordinating to cover more ground and save humans on opposite sides of the arena. Bosses receive a noticeable vitality boost in this mode, so you don’t feel too overpowered as a duo. Unfortunately, there’s no way to earn more lives, so if you’re playing with someone who’s more skilled than you, prepare to spend a lot of time waiting for the next round. Or, you know, get better at Resogun.